Mumbai: The BJP on Wednesday announced four candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from Maharashtra, including Union minister Ramdas Athawale and former state minister Vinod Tawde.
Besides Athawale and Tawde, the party has also fielded Nagpur ex-mayor Maya Chintaman Ivnate and former member of the legislative council (MLC) Ramrao Wadkute for the biennial elections.
Seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra are set to fall vacant in April. With over 230 MLAs in the 288-member assembly, the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is in a position to ensure the election of all four of its nominees.
Earlier, the BJP announced a total of nine candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls across various states. From Bihar, the party has fielded National President Nitin Nabin and Shivesh Kumar. In Assam, Terash Gowalla and Jogen Mohan have been nominated, while Laxmi Verma will contest from Chhattisgarh. Haryana’s candidate is Sanjay Bhatia. In Odisha, the party has nominated State unit chief Manmohan Samal along with Sujeet Kumar.
The BJP on Tuesday announced that it has nominated its former MP from Karnal, Sanjay Bhatia, for the Rajya Sabha poll from Haryana. Bhatia (58) is considered a confidant of Union Minister and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar. He thanked his party leadership for nominating an “ordinary worker” like him as the party candidate, following the announcement. He had expressed this sentiment earlier as well, when he was fielded from Karnal Lok Sabha constituency in 2019.
As the BJP enjoys a majority in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, Bhatia is set to be elected to the Upper House. The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday announced 9 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections scheduled for March 16, with party National President Nitin Nabin set to contest from Bihar.
From Bihar, the party has fielded Nitin Nabin and Shivesh Kumar. In Assam, the BJP has nominated Terash Gowalla and Jogen Mohan, while in Chhattisgarh, it has named Laxmi Verma as its candidate. From Haryana, the party has selected Sanjay Bhatia. In Odisha, the BJP has nominated State unit chief Manmohan Samal along with Sujeet Kumar.
Nabin, who currently holds the Bankipur assembly seat in the state, has been named along with Shivesh Kumar, a former MLA who had unsuccessfully contested the Sasaram Lok Sabha seat in the general elections held two years ago.
Nabin, 45, was catapulted to the top party post in January, when he replaced two-term national president and Union minister Jagat Prakash Nadda, in a surprise decision which is said to have signalled the rise of the “third generation leadership” in the BJP, which grew under the likes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, and reached the pinnacle of success under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
