Rajya Sabha polls: Names of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Prakash Javadekar, RPN Singh missing from BJP list

New Delhi: The BJP`s list of candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls has prominent names, including Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, missing. The polls for the upper House will be held next month June 10. The BJP has so far released the names of 22 candidates in the three lists.

The names of Union Minority Affairs Minister Naqvi, former Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, party national general secretary Dushyant Gautam, former national vice president Dr Vinay Sahastrabuddhe, former Union Minister Shiv Pratap Shukla and national spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam are missing in the lists released.

Sources told IANS that Naqvi may be fielded from the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh for which bypolls are scheduled for June 23. Naqvi is elected to the Upper House from Jharkhand and the BJP has nominated Aditya Sahu from the state this time.

Notably, former Congress Minister RPN Singh, who left the Congress to join the BJP ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections, has failed to find a place in the list for the Rajya Sabha polls.

Before leaving the Congress, Singh was Jharkhand in-charge and was considered a probable for the Upper House in the party. He, however, left the Congress after differences over the selection of candidates in his home turf Padrauna.

Late Monday evening, the BJP announced the names of four more candidates for the upcoming biennial election for the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, while it had the names of 18 candidates for the biennial elections in two lists on Sunday. 

In a list of candidates released on Sunday, the BJP has fielded Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman from Karnataka and Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra. The party also fielded Sitharaman, actor-turned-politician Jaggesh and Lahar Singh Siroya from Karnataka, while Kavita Patidar and Sumitra Valmiki will contest from Madhya Pradesh.

From Maharashtra, Union Minister Piyush Goyal, Anil Sukhdevrao Bonde and Dhananjay Mahadik have been fielded.

From Uttar Pradesh, Laxmikant Bajpai, Radhamohan Aggarwal, Surendra Singh Nagar, Baburam Nishad, Darshana Singh, Sangeeta Yadav, Mithlesh Kumar and Dr K. Laxman are the candidates.

In Bihar, the saffron party has given tickets to Satish Chandra Dubey and Shambhu Sharan Patel. It has fielded Kalpana Saini from Uttarakhand, Krishan Lal Panwar from Haryana and Ghanshyam Tiwari from Rajasthan.

Biennial elections for 57 Rajya Sabha seats will be held across 15 states on June 10.

(With Agency Inputs)