The Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday announced names of their nominees for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls to be held on March 23.

All candidates are required to file nominations by today (Monday, March 12). The elections will be held on March 23.

There will be 59 vacancies in the Rajya Sabha in April, including 17 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 12 from the Congress party. Three nominated members – actor Rekha, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and social worker Anu Aga – will also retire then.

The BJP, which re-nominated its Union ministers to Rajya Sabha last week, announced a list of 18 candidates that include some fresh faces and some newly inducted veterans, with an eye on caste representation.

The Congress has not renominated any of its retiring members, except senior leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, from states where it is expected to win seats.

A prominent omission from the BJP list is that of Vinay Katiyar whose term is due to expire now. The founder member and president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s youth wing Bajrang Dal, he is one of the top BJP leaders who are facing charges in the Supreme Court for criminal conspiracy in Babri Masjid-Ayodhya Ram Temple issue. Recently he declared Muslims had no place in this country and that Taj Mahal was originally a Shiva temple.

The BJP list includes former Congress leader and former Maharashtra CM Narayan Rane, Rajasthan’s Kirodi Lal Meena who rejoined the BJP Sunday, and Rajeev Chandrashekhar who has been an independent MP in Rajya Sabha. Newly inducted to BJP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the chairman of Jupiter Capital is one of the largest investors in Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV news channel.

Anil Baluni, the national head of the BJP’s media wing, has been named from Uttarakhand, while Saroj Pandey, who is presently the general secretary of the party, has been named from Chhattisgarh. Kirori Lal Meena and Madan Lal Saini have been named to contest from Rajasthan.

The selection of Meena, whose equations with Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje are known to have been strained, is seen as an initiative against perceived anti-incumbency. With Sachin Pilot, a Gujjar, leading the Congress, the BJP is trying to consolidate the Meena community, said BJP sources.

Among the candidates from UP, prominent is Ashok Bajpai. He is one of the founder members of the Samajwadi Party and a seven-term MLA. Bajpai, a Brahmin leader from Hardoi, joined the BJP last year. Harnath Singh Yadav, a former MLC, too came from the SP (in 2007); his Yadav community is a strong support base of the SP.

Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, another UP candidate, is a prominent farmers’ leader. Kanta Kardam belongs to the Jatav community, a strong support base of the BSP. Another nomination from a backward group is Sakal Deep Rajbhar, state executive member from Balia, who belongs to the Rajbhar caste that constitutes a large population in eastern UP.

Prominent leaders like GVL Narshima Rao who is the party’s spokesperson and Anil Jain, National General Secretary of BJP will contest from Uttar Pradesh along with Sakal Deep Rajbhar and Harnath Singh Yadav.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has already filed nomination from Uttar Pradesh.

Ajay Pratap Singh and Kailash Soni will contest from Madhya Pradesh while Narayana Rane and V Muralidharan will represent Maharashtra. The decision to nominate V Muraleedharan, former Kerala state party chief, is seen as part of efforts to launch an aggressive mission in the state ruled by the Left. Muraleedharan’s nomination could please the Ezhavas, who represent a significant section of Hindus in Kerala.

Lt General DP Vats, Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Sameer Uranv are contesting from Haryana, Karnataka and Jharkhand respectively.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare JP Nadda has filed his nomination papers as the BJP candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will contest from Bihar.

The BJP will field Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot from Madhya Pradesh for another Rajya Sabha term. Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Mansukh L Mandaviya and Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Parshottam Rupala will contest election from Gujarat.

In Bihar, where six seats are up for grabs, BJP ally JD(U) has now named Mahendra Prasad and B N Singh. JD(U) spokesperson K C Tyagi might be considered later for the seat held by Sharad Yadav.

The RJD has nominated its national spokesperson Manoj Kumar Jha and owner of a private medical college, Ashfaq Karim, while the Congress is eyeing the sixth seat with RJD support. Sources said the nominee could be former MP Akhilesh Singh.

Sources said the NDA might field a seventh candidate against the Congress as it has 21 votes to spare and hopes to get support of three independents. The NDA would still need 11 more and may place its hopes on engineering cross voting from Congress through former PCC president Ashok Choudhary, who joined JD(U) recently.

Congress

The 10 Congress candidates include senior journalist Kumar Ketkar from Maharashtra, and former Union minister Naranbhai Ratwa and the party’s familiar television face Amee Yajnik from Gujarat.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is also representing Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram in the INX Media case, will contest from West Bengal where the Trinamool Congress has already announced its support for his candidature.

The other candidates are former Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu from Jharkhand, former state minister Rajmani Patel from Madhya Pradesh and former MP Porika Balram Naik from Telangana. The Congress has little chance of getting its nominee elected from Telangana.

In Jharkhand, the JMM has already announced its decision to support the Congress nominee.

From Karnataka, the Congress has nominated L Hanumanthaiah, Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrasekhar.

Hanumanthaiah, vice president of Karnataka Congress, is a Dalit writer and poet. He belongs to the Vokkaliga community. Hussain is a Congress spokesperson. The Congress, which has 120 MLAs, can send at least two MPs with 45 votes each.

With Congress fielding a Vokkaliga leader, the JD(S) will have the difficult choice of backing its own candidate or voting for a Vokkaliga, its main support base. The Congress had earlier turned down JD(S)’s request to back its candidate, businessman BM Farook. While the JD(S) is short by 15 votes, the Congress too is short of some votes for the third MP. The party, however, expects to get the support of seven JD(S) rebels and some independents and others.

The Congress denied a renomination to former Union minister K Rahman Khan from Karnataka, Satyavrat Chaturvedi from MP, Rajani Patil and Rajeev Shukla from Maharashtra and former state president Pradeep Kumar Balmuchu from Jharkhand.

For the two seats in Gujarat, supporters of state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and Shaktisinh Gohil were lobbying hard. Former union minister Subodh Kant Sahay, former minister Rajendra Singh and Sahu were in the race from Jharkhand.

Besides Chaturvedi, senior leaders such as Suresh Pachauri, former Mahila Congress chief Shobha Oza and State Congress president Arun Yadav were in contention for the seat in MP. Chaturvedi, who is retiring, reportedly had the backing of Jyotiraditya Scindia.