Arvind Kumar Sharma, a bureaucrat who joined the BJP on Thursday after working closely with Narendra Modi for nearly two decades in his administrative capacity, was on Friday nominated for a Legislative Council berth in Uttar Pradesh by the party.

On its own strength, the BJP will be able to get 10 members elected in the January 28 polls.

Sharma, an IAS officer who was serving as the micro, small and medium enterprises secretary, took voluntary retirement last week. Before that he had held senior positions in the Gujarat CMO between 2002 and 2014 when Modi was chief minister and in the PMO after the leader took over as Prime Minister.

The speculation that Sharma could be made a minister or even a deputy chief minister grew after his Legislative Council nomination.

Uttar Pradesh now has two deputy chief ministers — Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma.

According to sources, Maurya doesn’t enjoy a cordial relation with chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

Reacting to Sharma’s candidature, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said: “It is good that someone joined the BJP yesterday and his name was announced as a candidate today. Someone was telling me something which could be wrong or right…. the CM should also become a member of the BJP now.”

Several leaders across parties claim that Adityanath is still not a member of the BJP.

Along with Sharma, the BJP also announced the names of deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh and RSS veteran Laxman Prasad Acharya as nominees for the elections. The terms of 12 members are to end on January 30. The BJP is to choose six more nominees.

The Samajwadi Party has fielded senior leaders Ahmad Hasan and Rajendra Chaudhary. However, the party has 49 MLAs whereas the votes of 32 legislators are needed to elect one Legislative Council member.

BSP chief Mayawati has said her party will support the BJP or any other party to defeat the SP’s nominees.