BJP announces six more candidates for Rajya Sabha seats

New Delhi: The BJP on Monday released another list of six candidates for the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha from five states, including Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. Others shortlisted by the BJP central election committee are party spokesperson M.J. Akbar, vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Vikas Mahatme, Shiv Pratap Shukla and Mahesh Poddar. Prabhu, who entered the upper house last time from Haryana, has now been nominated from Andhra Pradesh. Akbar, earlier elected from Jharkhand to the upper house, has now been nominated 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 had 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.