The Congress on Thursday released the list of its candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections from various states, including national president Mallikarjun Kharge.
The Rajya Sabha elections to 24 seats from 10 seats will be held on June 18. Three seats in Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Maharashtra will also see bypolls on the same day. The announcement comes as the final date to file nominations in June 8.
Kharge has been nominated from Karnataka along with Pawan Khera and Mansoor Ali Khan. Khera is set to make him debut in Parliament, according to a comminication from AICC General Secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal.
After TVK offered its ally Congress its lone Rajya Sabha berth in Tamil Nadu, the grand old party fielded Praveen Chakravarthy from the seat. Chakravarthy heads the head of the Data Analytics and Professionals Wing of the Congress.
Meenakshi Natarajan is contesting from Madhya Pradesh, while Pranav Jha was nominated from Jharkhand. Neeraj Dangi was field from Rajasthan.
Earlier in the day, the BJP also released the list of its Rajya Sabha candidates. The party did not renominate Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian, whose terms are ending on June 21. This hints at a potential Cabinet reshuffle at the Centre.
There are four candidates from Gujarat, including Rajubhai Shukla, Mukeshbhai Rathwa, Mansingh Parmar and Jitendra Meghhibhai Kanzariya.
The two candidates from Madhya Pradesh are Rajneesh Agrawal and Tarun Chugh. Chugh is BJP national general secretary.
Rajasthan also has two candidates. One is BJP national secretary Alka Gurjar, party's co-in-charge for Delhi. The other is former Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia, who is party's in-charge for Haryana.
Tai Tagak was fielded from Arunachal Pradesh while Manipur BJP president A. Sharda Devi is contesting from Manipur. Debashish Samantaray, who recently joined the BJP after leaving the BJD, has been nominated from Odisha.
