Rajya Sabha polls: MP BJP sends list of 20 names

New Delhi, Mar 10: The Madhya Pradesh BJP has sent a list of 20 to 22 names, including national general secretaries Ram Madhav and Kailash Vijayvargiya, to the party's central poll panel to pick two candidates for the March 26 Rajya Sabha elections to three seats in the state, a senior leader said.

The names of Satyanarayan Jatiya and Prabhat Jha, both sitting Rajya Sabha members from the state, also figure in the list, a senior BJP leader told PTI on Monday.

"Now it is for the party's central election committee to take a call. It is empowered to nominate some other leaders also who are not mentioned in the list sent to it," he said.

Going by the numbers, the BJP will definitely win one seat, he said. "We are going to stake claim for one more seat," the BJP leader said.

The three Rajya Sabha seats from the state which are falling vacant are currently held by Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh, and BJP leaders Satyanarayan Jatiya and Prabhat Jha.

In the 230-member state Assembly, the Congress has 114 MLAs while the BJP has 107.

Four Independent MLAs, two lawmakers of the Bahujan Samaj Party and one legislator of the Samajwadi Party are supporting the Congress-led state government.

Two seats are vacant following the demise of a Congress and a BJP legislator. Members of a state's Legislative Assembly vote in the Rajya Sabha elections.

The Congress recently alleged that the BJP "abducted" some MLAs to bring down the Kamal Nath government in the state. However, the BJP denied the allegation, saying it has nothing to do with the development, which it claimed was the result of "infighting" among Congress leaders ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections.