Lucknow: Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani, a group president at Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), is Samajwadi Party’s ‘surprise’ pick for the Rajya Sabha elections. Accompanied by SP national president Akhilesh Yadav, Nathwani and SP secretary general Ram Gopal Yadav filed their nomination papers for the polls on Wednesday.After filing his nomination papers Dhanraj, 40, took to X to thank the SP chief for nominating him as the party candidate for the Upper House of Parliament. He described his entry into the Rajya Sabha as a new phase of his public life and thanked everyone who showed faith and trust in him.His father, Parimal Nathwani, is director of corporate affairs at RIL. He has worked closely with both Dhirubhai Ambani and Mukesh Ambani. He is also a fourth-term Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand, supported by the NDA camp. Nathwani senior’s first two terms as an independent MP were also from Jharkhand, but he shifted to Andhra Pradesh in 2020 and was sent to the Upper House by the YSR Congress.Commenting on Dhanraj’s nomination, Akhilesh said he was happy that the SP got a chance to send a candidate from the new generation to Rajya Sabha. “Many political parties have a strong hold over the corporate world. So SP also decided to get associated with the industrial world, so we are sending a candidate from there to the Rajya Sabha,” the SP chief said at a press conference later.Recently, Akhilesh Yadav, while responding to a media query on probable names for Rajya Sabha had said that the party would come up as a surprise candidate, and rightly so. When SP declared Dhanraj’s candidature on its X account on Wednesday morning, he defied the general assessment that the party would follow its set MY (Muslim-Yadav) or PDA (Picchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) template in candidate selection.Even when Akhilesh was talking about the surprise candidate, it was assumed that he was referring to the third candidate from the party. There are 10 seats to be grabbed in UP and SP has numbers to get two candidates easily elected. Ram Gopal Yadav, whose term is ending now, and former UP chief secretary Alok Ranjan were considered as two sure-shot candidates. However, with the second slot going to Nathwani, there is a question mark on Ranjan’s candidature. On Wednesday, when asked about the possibility of fielding the third candidate, Akhilesh said “We will consider that as soon as we have enough votes.”Nathwani’s selection is a renewal of SP’s old association with the Reliance Group. In 2004, the party, under Mulayam Singh Yadav, had sent Anil Ambani to the upper house. However, it has come at odds with the India bloc’s recent consistent campaign against Ambani-Adani, calling them symbols of crony capitalism, and coming soon after the disappearance of Ambani’s picture from the collage on the backdrop at Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s recent press conference against the ECI, triggering chatter in political circles.A sports enthusiast, Dhanraj has been the president of the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) since he was elected unopposed in 2022, replacing Amit Shah. Nathanis have had a long association with the Ambanis; Parimal worked closely with Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani before he joined Mukesh. A close confidant of the family, Parimal led the land acquisition for the Reliance Group’s world’s largest oil refinery in Jamnagar, Gujarat. Dhanraj himself heads manufacturing and business verticals of RIL, is a board member of Reliance Corporate IT Park Limited and oversees RIL’s Jamnagar manufacturing divisions. He also oversees Reliance Jio Defence Systems Limited as well.Apart from his corporate responsibilities, Dhanraj is the vice-chairman of the administrative committee of Dwarkadhish Temple (Dwarka) and a member of the Nathdwara Temple Board. He is closely associated with the Gujarat State Board for Wildlife, Pandit Dindayal Energy University, and the Gujarat Ecological Education & Research (GEER) Foundation among other similar entities associated with education, research and wildlife conservation.Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief and UP cabinet minister chief OP Rajbhar questioned the candidature of Ram Gopal and Dhanraj to target SP’s PDA pitch. “Does PDA stand for Parivar (family), Daulatmand (wealthy) and Apradhi (criminals),” he asked. The SP dismissed Rajbhar’s response as a ‘panic reaction’ which was politically irrelevant.
