Prabhu to be TDP-BJP candidate from Andhra, Akbar to represent MP

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will be the Telugu Desam Party-Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for a Rajya Sabha seat from Andhra Pradesh in the election slated for June 11, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced on Monday night.

Prabhu will file his nomination in Hyderabad on Tuesday.

"BJP president Amit Shah called me over phone yesterday (on Sunday) and requested me to accommodate Prabhu for Rajya Sabha. We considered the request and accepted it. Prabhu is my good friend since the time of Vajpayee government when he headed the panel on interlinking of rivers," Chandrababu said.

On TDP's behalf, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Y Satyanarayana Chowdary has been re-nominated for the second Rajya Sabha seat. "Chowdary had been championing the state's cause in Parliament. Hence, we decided to nominate him again," the TDP chief said.

For the third seat, the TDP has chosen former minister T G Venkatesh. Venkatesh, who belongs to the Vysya community, is an industrialist and served as a minister in the Congress governments between 2010 and 2014.

Chandrababu, however, kept everyone guessing on the TDP's "strategic move" of fielding a fourth candidate, ostensibly as an Independent, through the 17 YSR Congress MLAs, who defected to the ruling party in recent days. He remained evasive on the issue saying "you will know about it tomorrow".

The BJP has picked party spokesperson M J Akbar as its nominee to fill the second vacant seat for the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh. The party had re-nominated senior leader Anil Madhav Dave as its candidate for one of the three seats from Madhya Pradesh.

The names of 12 candidates recommended by the state BJP election committee for two Rajya Sabha seats did not include Akbar. Two-term Rajya Sabha MP Chandan Mitra does not figure on the BJP list. Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu, lawyer Ram Jethmalani and RJD chief Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti were among several candidates who on Monday submitted their papers. BJP vice-president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, who heads a think tank affiliated to the party and is also in-charge of its affairs in MP, and Vikas Mahatme were nominated from Maharashtra while Shiv Pratap Shukla will contest from Uttar Pradesh and Mahesh Poddar from Jharkhand.

Elections for 57 seats in the Upper House from 15 states would be held on June 11.

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, whose name was doing the rounds as a contender, is not among the six candidates with sources saying he is likely to get a bigger responsibility in the organisation following a rejig expected soon.