Union minister Mukul Roy, actor-turned-politician Jaya Bachchan and the BJP’s Vinay Katiyar were among eight candidates who filed their nomination papers on Saturday for the Rajya Sabha biennial polls.
The last day for filing of nominations for the March 30 elections is March 19. All the eight candidates filed their papers before the returning officers of the state assemblies concerned. Three journalists — Kunal Ghosh, Nadimul Haque and Vivek Gupta — are all Trinamul Congress nominees, while Ms Jaya Bachchan is one of the six Samajwadi Party candidates.
Mr Roy, Union minister of state for shipping and the Trinamul Congress’ all-India general secretary, Mr Ghosh, Mr Haque and Mr Gupta filed their papers in Kolkata as Trinamul nominees. Trinamul chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was present at the time of filing of papers. Ms Bachchan filed her nomination papers in Lucknow in the presence of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and other party MLAs.
She is the sixth Samajwadi Party nominee to file her nomination for the Upper House. Other SP candidates — Mr Naresh Agarwal, Mr Kiranmoy Nanda, Mr Darshan Singh Yadav, Mr Brij Bhushan Tiwari and Mr Munawwar Saleem — had filed their nominations on Friday.
Mr Katiyar, a BJP nominee, also filed his papers in Lucknow in the presence of senior party leaders Kalraj Misra, Suresh Khanna and Hukum Singh.
In Raipur, Mr Bhusan Lal Jangde, a member of Satnami community listed in SC category, filed nomination as a ruling BJP candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls from Chhattisgarh. Dr Jangde filed two sets of nominations in the presence of chief minister Raman Singh and PWD minister Brij Mohan Agrawal. The BJP, with 49 members in the Assembly, has enough numbers to retain the RS seat. In Jaipur, the Opposition BJP nominated Mr Bhupendra Yadav.