BJP announces six more candidates for Rajya Sabha seats

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janaata Party on Monday released another list of six candidates, including Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, for the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha from five states.

Others shortlisted by the BJP central election committee are party spokesperson MJ Akbar, vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, BJP Uttar Pradesh unit vice president Shiv Pratap Shukla, Jharkhand BJP leader Mahesh Poddar, and Vikas Mahatme, who is the founder of Mahatme Eye Bank and Eye Hospital.

Prabhu and Akbar have been re-nominated while Sahasrabuddhe, Mahatme, Shukla and Poddar are new entrants.

Prabhu, who entered the upper house last time from Haryana, has now been nominated from Andhra Pradesh, where two seats are falling vacant. The ruling TDP of Andhra Pradesh has supported Prabhu's candidature.

Akbar, earlier elected to the upper house from Jharkhand, has now been fielded from Madhya Pradesh while Sahasrabuddhe and Mahatme have been nominated from Maharashtra.

Shukla has been nominated from Uttar Pradesh and Poddar from Jharkhand.

The BJP released a list of 12 candidates on Sunday as well, which included the names of union ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Chaudhary Birender Singh and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

The other candidates named by the BJP central election committee for the Rajya Sabha elections from nine states were Om Prakash Mathur, Harsh Vardhan Singh, Ram Kumar Verma, Purushottam Rupala, Anil Madhav Dave, Ramvichar Netam and Gopal Narayan Singh.