Now expect Two Rajya Sabha MPs from one Gujarati family

The two seats belong to the Nathwani family — both long-time Reliance executives, not blood relatives of the Ambanis, but part of the inner corporate circle.

By Political Desk | Noida / Lucknow | 30 September 2026

Why the Noida circuit sat up

The Noida–Greater Noida news and corporate circuit is not surprised because Dhanraj Nathwani is a local face. He is not. The surprise is the collision of three maps that usually stay apart: a Gujarati Reliance executive, a Samajwadi Party ticket from Lucknow, and an NCR political economy built on land, power, data, retail and airport-linked capital.

Noida is where Uttar Pradesh’s industrial class meets Delhi’s political class. It is also the district the BJP has used as a stage against the SP — Modi’s line that the party once treated Noida as an “ATM for loot” still hangs in the local air. Into that room walks a Group President of Reliance Industries, whose own profile lists additional charge covering Delhi and Maharashtra, filing as Akhilesh Yadav’s “surprise” Rajya Sabha nominee.

Perceptions there split three ways. One camp reads a funding and access deal before 2027. A second reads a personal political debut that the company will neither bless nor block. A third reads a message to NCR capital: the opposition in Uttar Pradesh is open for business even while it campaigns as PDA.

Is Reliance involved?

There is no public statement from Reliance Industries. No press note, no clarification, no denial. That absence is the first fact.

The second fact is harder to ignore. Both men hold senior titles in the same group. Parimal Nathwani is Director of Corporate Affairs. Dhanraj Nathwani is Group President, a director at Reliance New Energy, and has sat on group support and property boards. Media have called them Ambani-family confidants. That is proximity. It is not a board resolution.

How is the nomination possible if the company is not “involved”? Because Indian corporate politics does not need a company letterhead to move.

• The family already has an 18-year Rajya Sabha method. Parimal has sat as Independent from Jharkhand, as YSRCP from Andhra Pradesh, and as NDA-backed Independent from Jharkhand again. The company has lived with that arrangement since 2008. The son’s ticket is the same method on the other side of the aisle.
• Parties buy what these tickets have always bought from industrialists: money, networks, and a man who can talk to ministries. The SP does not need Reliance to issue a whip. It needs a nominee who can underwrite a campaign season.
• Senior executives in large Indian groups often keep a personal political life so long as they do not become a listed-company liability. The Independent / multi-party label is the insulation. The company can say the MP is a private citizen. The party can say he is its authorised nominee. Both can be true at once.

So the honest answer: Reliance is not on the nomination form. Reliance is in the biography. That is enough for Noida’s rooms to treat the ticket as an Ambani-adjacent event even if Mumbai headquarters stays silent.

The father from Jharkhand, the son from Uttar Pradesh

Parimal Nathwani won Jharkhand in June 2026 as an NDA-backed Independent after cross-voting — 28 votes against the Congress’s 20 — his fourth term. He has never fought a popular election. Gujarat-rooted, he handled land and clearances for the Jamnagar refinery and worked the Gujarat Cricket Association ecosystem after Amit Shah.

Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani, born 1986, filed in Lucknow today with Ramgopal Yadav in Akhilesh Yadav’s presence, then publicly thanked the SP chief. He runs non-technical operations at Jamnagar and Vadodara, was president of the Gujarat Cricket Association, and is vice-chairman of the Dwarkadhish temple committee. He has no PDA organisation in Uttar Pradesh. That is why party circles, not only Noida, called the name a surprise.

What tremors the entry can set off

Inside the SP, the first tremor is caste arithmetic. PDA was sold as Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak. Ramgopal Yadav covers the family. Dhanraj covers none of the three letters. Om Prakash Rajbhar has already written the attack line: the “wealthy” slot. Cadre who expected a Muslim or Dalit face for the second seat will not forget the photograph of a Gujarati industrialist filing in Lucknow.

The second tremor is the INDIA bloc’s language. Rahul Gandhi’s campaign has used Ambani and Adani as shorthand for crony capitalism. Congress in Jharkhand lost a Rajya Sabha seat to the father three months ago. The son now takes an SP ticket. Opposition workers are already asking why Muslim votes elect Yadav uncles and Reliance sons. That is not a legal problem. It is a speech problem for 2027.

The third tremor is two-faced on the BJP side. The ruling party can mock SP hypocrisy. It cannot pretend the Nathwanis are strangers. The father sits because NDA MLAs and cross-voters made the quota in Ranchi. The son succeeding Amit Shah at the Gujarat Cricket Association is part of the same Gujarat public life the BJP dominates. A family that can take NDA help in June and an SP ticket in September is a reminder that big capital does not owe one party a monopoly.

The fourth tremor is local to Noida and western UP industry. Land, power purchase, data centres, retail, airport logistics and new energy are the files that pass through this circuit. A Reliance Group President in the Rajya Sabha on an opposition ticket does not change policy overnight. It does change who can pick up the phone in Lucknow after 2027 if the map moves. That is why the Noida rooms are talking — not because they have seen a company memo.

The fifth tremor is the third-seat temptation. The SP has numbers for two. It has floated a third. Stretching for three while gifting one of the safe two to an outsider is exactly the risk Rajbhar named: lose the second while chasing the third. If even a handful of MLAs sulk, the “surprise” becomes a counting-day story.

Not a split. A hedge.

This is not father versus son. It is one desk, two camps. The family is not a BJP household that defected and not an SP household that converted. It is a Reliance political desk that parks Upper House seats where MLAs can be found. Gujarat did not elect them. Jharkhand’s House sent the father. Uttar Pradesh’s House is being asked to send the son.

Akhilesh’s instrument logic remains the same: money and goodwill before 2027; a channel into Gujarat–Maharashtra–Delhi industry; a nominee who can pull resources in a House election that often turns on more than cadre; a hedge so that one Nathwani sits with NDA numbers and another with SP numbers.

Polling is on 16 October 2026. If the arithmetic holds, one Gujarati family will have two men in the same House from opposite camps. Noida will keep asking if Reliance signed off. The more useful question is the one the nomination already answered: in the Rajya Sabha market, ideology is secondary to access.