New Delhi: Senior advocate Ujjwal Nikam, former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, social worker C.Sadanandan Master and historian Meenakshi Jain were nominated by President Droupadi Murmu to the Rajya Sabha.
The nominations have been made to fill vacancies created by the retirement of earlier nominated members.
The President can nominate up to 12 members from the fields of literature, science, art and social service to the Upper House of Parliament.
The selection of Nikam was long due as he worked in high-profile cases such as the Gulshan Kumar murder, the Shakti Mill gang rape, the Marine Drive rape, the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, and the 26/11 terror attack.
The special public prosecutor was routinely in the news during the trial of Akmal Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist arrested during the 2008 terror attack. He had later drawn condemnation after he revealed that Kasab had never demanded mutton biryani during his trial.
Born in North Maharashtra’s Jalgaon, he started practicing as a lawyer in 1979. His father was a judge but he shot to fame for the first time when he was appointed as special public prosecutor in the 1993 serial blasts case.
Nikam’s proximity with the BJP dispensation grew after the 26/11 case. The Narendra Modi government conferred the Padma Shri to him in 2016.
Last year, the BJP dropped two-term sitting MP Poonam Mahajan from the high-profile Mumbai North Central seat and instead gave the poll ticket to Nikam. His electoral debut ended with a loss as Congress Varsha Gaikwad trounced him by a margin of 16,500-plus votes.
PM Modi hailed the nominations made by the Rashtrapati Bhavan. “Shri Ujjwal Nikam’s devotion to the legal field and to our Constitution is exemplary. He has not only been a successful lawyer but also been at the forefront of seeking justice in important cases. During his entire legal career, he has always worked to strengthen Constitutional values and ensure common citizens are always treated with dignity,” he posted on X.
A retired Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, Shringla had served as the foreign secretary between January 2020 and April 2022. He had navigated the Indian diplomatic landscape during the Covid pandemic. Shringla was recently part of India’s outreach to the Islamic world after Operation Sindoor following the Pahalgam terror attack.
As the Indian ambassador to the US, Shringla was credited with Modi’s public event Howdy Modi in Houston and maintaining warm relationship with US President Donald Trump in his first term.
He was later made the chief G20 coordinator for India’s G20 Presidency in 2023 and went on to help the Modi government in organising the G20 Summit in New Delhi that year.
In Shringla’s biography ’Not An Accidental Rise,’ author Dipmala Roka has mentioned how he managed administrative and diplomatic efforts to manage the supply chain of essentials, negotiating for the smooth supply chain of drugs and other essentials.
The book further mentions that when the Modi government scrapped Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019, Shringla met 400 senators and traveled to 22 states in the US.
His name had come up as a BJP candidate from Darjeeling in the last year’s general elections, but the party stuck with the sitting MP Raju Bista.
A former teacher and social worker of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sadanand Master had unsuccessfully contested the 2016 and 2021 assembly poll as a BJP candidate. Currently, he is seving as the BJP state president of the Kerala unit.
The Sangh veteran survived an attack by CPI(M) goons in 1994 but lost both his legs. Despite his state, he remained active in politics and the BJP presented his case to highlight the Left’s brutality in Kerala.
“The BJP is making inroads in Kerala after the first Lok Sabha victory (of Suresh Gopi in Thrissur), His selection is politically important to send a message to cadres fighting against the Left rule for the last two decades,” a BJP functionary told ThePrint.
Meenakshi Jain, a renowned historian of medieval and colonial India, is daughter of Times of India’s former editor Girilal Jain.
She is a former associate professor of History at Gargi College, Delhi University, as well as a former fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, and a former member of the Governing Council of the Indian Council of Historical Research. Jain is currently a senior fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research.
Her well-researched books such as ‘Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples’, ‘The Battle for Rama: Case of the Temple at Ayodhya, Rama and Ayodhya’, ‘Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu–Muslim Relations’ have dealt with historical issues of national importance.
Jain had contributed to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks during the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Later, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance dropped her book from the syllabus. The RSS and other Hindu Right outfits cited her work in the legal fight over Ayodhya.
The historian was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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