BJP names Prabhu, Akbar as RS candidates

New Delhi:  BJP on Monday nominated Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu as its Rajya Sabha candidate from Andhra Pradesh, where he has been assured of ruling TDP’s support, and would field noted journalist M J Akbar from Madhya Pradesh and party vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe from Maharashtra for the biennial polls.
Party’s general secretary Ram Madhav, whose name was doing 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.
Other BJP candidates are Vikas Mahatme from Maharashtra, Shiv Pratap Shukla from Uttar Pradesh and Mahesh Poddar from Jharkhand.
It had on Sunday released the first list of 12 candidates. Shukla is a senior party leader from UP where the party wanted to field a Brahmin face, a key support base of BJP, ahead of the assembly polls next year. Poddar is a senior party leader from Jharkhand.
Madhav, who played an important role in BJP’s win in Assam,  had said in a tweet that he would not be a candidate as speculated. (PTI)