NEW DELHI, July 27 (Xinhua) -- India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah is all set to soon become a Member of Parliament in the Upper House.
Indian Health Minister J.P. Nadda announced Wednesday night that the BJP's parliamentary board, the party's highest policy making body, has decided that Shah will contest the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) polls from the western state of Gujarat on Aug. 8.
Shah is a sitting member of the legislative assembly of Gujarat, also Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state, but the party now wants him in the Upper House of Parliament, where the BJP is in a minority.
Shah, a close aide of Prime Minister Modi, is credited with the BJP's win in the 2014 general election and this year's assembly election in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh in the north.
A long-time member of Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP, 50-year-old Shah is a controversial politician, who is accused of sanctioning the killing of a Muslim civilian in 2005 when he was Gujarat's home minister.
In 2010, Shah resigned after he was charged with murder and kidnapping of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and arrested in connection with the killing. He was released on bail after spending over three months in jail. Shah denied the charges.
