Corporate honcho Dhanraj Parimal is SP's surprise candidate for Rajya Sabha

Lucknow ( Raghwendra Pratap Singh) : Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani is Samajwadi Party's 'surprise' candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls along with party's secretary general Prof Ram Gopal Yadav.

Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani is the Group President of Reliance Industries and considered to be very close to the Ambani family. He is also a sports administrator. The two will file their nomination papers in the presence of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav at 11 am.

Recently, Akhilesh Yadav, while responding to a media query on probable candidates for Rajya Sabha had said that this time there will be a surprise candidate from SP. On Wednesday morning the party declared Nathwani's name as the second confirmed candidate of the party on SP's official X account.

A founding member of SP and party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's chief political strategist, Ram Gopal Yadav has been in the Rajya Sabha continuously since 2004. He has stood with Akhilesh through all the thick and thin and sided with him during the battle for supremacy within the Yadav clan in the run-up to 2017 assembly polls.

As per the math in place, SP has INDIA bloc MLAs to see through two of its candidates in Rajya Sabha and will need some outside MLAs for any third candidate.