The Samajwadi Party on Tuesday nominated actor-politician Jaya Bachchan, Ramji Lal Suman and Alok Ranjan for the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.

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Bachchan (75) was first elected in 2004 as the Member of Parliament from the Samajwadi Party, representing Uttar Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha till March 2006. She got a second term from June 2006 till July 2010. She was re-elected in 2012 for the third term and again in 2018 for her fourth term in the Rajya Sabha from the party.

“The Samajwadi Party has fielded actress Jaya Bachchan, former Union minister Ramji Lal Suman and former chief secretary Alok Ranjan as its Rajya Sabha candidates,” party chief Akhilesh Yadav said.

Suman won the Lok Sabha elections from Firozabad for the first time in 1977. After that, he won the polls in the years 1989, 1999 and  2004. He has also been a minister in the Chandrashekhar government at the Centre.

Ranjan was the chief secretary in the Akhilesh Yadav government and retired in July 2016. He is counted among the main strategists of Yadav.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has nominated R P N Singh, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, Sadhna Singh, Amarpal Maurya, Sangita Balwant and Navin Jain from the northern state.

The Election Commission has scheduled the Rajya Sabha elections for 15 states, including Uttar Pradesh, on February 27.

Voting will take place from 9 am to 4 pm, with the deadline for nominations set for February 15.

Results of the elections will be announced on the same day, February 27.

The Election Commission has announced the biennial Rajya Sabha polls on February 27 for 56 seats, as the tenure of incumbents ends in April.

Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of 10 seats, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (six each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (five each), Karnataka and Gujarat (four each), Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan (three each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Chhattisgarh (one each).