The BJP announced seven candidates in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday night for the Rajya Sabha elections scheduled to be held on February 27.
BJP has fielded party’s national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, RPN Singh, who was a minister in the UPA government and joined the saffron party after leaving the Congress, and party’s state general secretary Amarpal Maurya as its candidates, officials here confirmed.
Former Agra Mayor Naveen Jain, former Ghazipur Sadar BJP MLA Sangeeta Balwant Bind, former Mughalsarai BJP MLA Sadhna Singh and former Mathura MP Tejveer Singh have also made it to the list.
Considering the number of BJP members in the Assembly, all seven candidates are certain to be elected as Rajya Sabha members.
To address the caste equation, the party has chosen candidates as one Brahmin, one Vaishya, one Thakur and four from backward caste (one Kurmi, one Maurya, one Jat and one Bind).
However, the BJP has cancelled the tickets of eight of the nine present Rajya Sabha members from UP in order to create caste equations in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
From the existing members, only Sudhanshu Trivedi has been given a second chance. Whereas, Dr Anil Aggarwal, Dr Ashok Bajpai, Dr Anil Jain, Kanta Kardam, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, GVL Narasimha Rao, Harnath Singh Yadav and Vijaypal Singh Tomar have been denied renomination.