BJP gives Maharashtra RS seat to Ramdas Athawale, Prakash Javadekar left out

NEW DELHI: BJP today gifted its lone Rajya Sabha seat from Maharashtra to its ally RPI leader Ramdas Athawale as it declared its remaining five candidates for the February 7 election to the Upper House.

After much deliberations, the party decided that Athawale, who has joined the NDA, will be nominated to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra, ending speculation over the fate of its BSP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar who was being considered for a re-election.

The other four candidates declared today are Ranvijay Singh Judev, son of former Union Minister Dilip Singh Judev, from Chhattisgarh and Shambhuprasad Tundiya, Lalsinh Vadodiya and Chunibhai Gohail from Gujarat.

While Tundiya and Gohail are former MLAs from Dasada and Veraval constituencies, Vadodiya switched over to BJP from Congress ahead of the last assembly polls in 2012.

With this, the party has declared all its 12 candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls.

Among its candidates, BJP has fielded three dalits - Athawale, Satyanarayan Jatia and Shambhuprasad Tundiya and one from the fishermen community in Chunibhai Gohail.

The party's Central Election Committee had earlier fielded C P Thakur and R K Sinha from Bihar, Satyanarayan Jatiya and Prabhat Jha from Madhya Pradesh and Vijay Goel, Ram Narain Dudi and Narayan Panchariya from Rajasthan.

The last date of filing the nominations for the polls is tomorrow and polling if required will be on February 7.