Ashok Chavan
Credit: PTI Photo
Mumbai: Veteran politician Ashok Chavan, who switched over from the Congress to the BJP, would be the saffron party’s candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls from Maharashtra.
The two other BJP candidates are Medha Kulkarni, a former MLA and Dr Ajeet Gopchade, a former RSS pracharak and BJP leader.
The Congress has nominated Chandrakant Handore, a former Mumbai mayor.
On the other hand, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP are yet to announce their candidates officially.
Elections to six Rajya Sabha seats are being held.
Six Rajya Sabha members Narayan Rane, Prakash Javadekar and V Muraleedharan (all three from BJP), Kumar Ketkar (Congress), Anil Desai (Shiv Sena) and Vandana Chavan (NCP) are retiring in April and polls to fill the vacancies are being held in February.
The last date of filing of nominations is 15 February and polling, if needed, would be held on 27 February.
Rane, who is the union MSME minister, may be contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, his Konkan bastion.