The speculation over whether the 93-year-old former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda will get one more opportunity to serve as Rajya Sabha member has ended with the BJP choosing OBC leader and academician M. Nagaraja as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections being held from Karnataka.

The name of Prof. Nagaraja, who has been associated with RSS since his student days, was cleared by the party Central election committee late on Sunday night (June 7, 2026). He filed his nomination papers too.

Mr. Nagaraja, who hails from Hubballi, had earlier served as ABVP State president, BJP State vice-president, and a member of the Karnataka Public Service Commission. He was also State in-charge of the committee that was tasked with the construction of office buildings under the party’s plan to have a party office in every district.

Mr. Nagaraj, who has obtained a PhD in highway engineering, has worked in the field of teaching and research for 22 years.

Mr. Gowda, who is the national president of JD(S), had to depend on the support of his ally BJP to contest the Rajya Sabha elections as his party did not have the necessary number of MLAs to ensure his victory on its own. Sources in the BJP State unit maintained that Mr. Gowda had never formally sought another term in the Rajya Sabha perhaps due to his old age. “There was no question of the BJP fielding any other candidate if Mr. Gowda wanted another term in the Rajya Sabha,” BJP sources said.

The BJP choosing Prof. Nagaraja is being seen as part of the political strategy by the party to make inroads into the OBC vote bank of the Congress in the wake of its leader Siddaramaiah stepping down as Chief Minister.

The biennial elections have been necessitated due to the retirement of Mr. Gowda, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, and BJP members Iranna Kadadi and Narayana Koragappa on June 25. Polling for the Rajya Sabha will be held on June 18.

MLC polls

Meanwhile, the BJP has also fielded Lingaraj Patil and Raghu Kautilya as its candidates for the forthcoming elections to the Legislative Council from the Assembly constituency. It has not given tickets to any of its sitting MLCs who are retiring.

The biennial elections are being held as seven MLCs, who have been elected by the Legislative Assembly, are retiring on June 30. The retiring MLCs are Govindaraju (Congress), Naseer Ahmed (Congress), M.T.B. Nagaraju (BJP), Prathap Simha Nayak (BJP), Thippannappa (Congress), Sunil Vallyapur (BJP) and B.K. Hariprasad (Congress).

The biennial elections to seven council seats will be held on June 18. The last day for filing nominations for MLC polls is June 11 while polling by MLAs will be held on June 18.