Jaya's Rajya Sabha berth from UP booked

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party on Wednesday announced that Jaya Bachhan will be its candidate for the Rajya Sabha again from Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming biennial elections.Tenure of SP MPs Jaya Bachchan, Kirannmoy Nanda, Darshan Singh Yadav, Naresh Agrawal and Alok Tewari ends on 2nd April. 

The party has 47 votes and only 37 are required to send a candidate to the Council of States. SP can send one candidate to the Rajya Sabha. With the rest 10 votes, there is buzz that the party will support the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate.

There was speculation that Uttar Pradesh SP president Naresh Uttam Patel would be the party candidate for Rajya Sabha. But SP national president Akhilesh Yadav named Jaya after meeting the legendary thespian Amitabh Bachchan twice.Biennial elections will be held on March 23 for the 58 seats of Rajya Sabha. The last date for filing nominations is March 12, scrutiny will take place the next day while March 15 is the deadline for the withdrawal of candidature. Polling, if required, will take place between 0900-1600 hrs and votes will be counted from 1700 hrs.(UNI)