Senior journalist and Bharatiya Janata Party leader M.J. Akbar and party colleague Anil Dave were elected to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh on Saturday night. 27 seats from seven seats had gone to the polls on. Senior lawyer Vivek Tankha, who was the Congress nominee, too, won from MP. Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Congress’ Jairam Ramesh and Oscar Fernandes were elected from Karnataka. The BJP won all four seats from Rajasthan. One was won by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu and the second one by senior leader O.P. Mathur. The other two seats were won by Dungarpur royal family scion Harshvardhan Singh and Dalit leader R.K. Verma.
From Uttarakhand, Congress leader Pradeep Tamta was elected. Samajwadi Party won all the seven seats it contested from Uttar Pradesh. Those elected are Amar Singh, Beni Prasad Verma, Reoti Raman Singh, Vishambar Prasad Nishad, Sukhram Singh Yadav, Surendra Nagar and Sanjay Seth. BSP candidates Satish Mishra and Ashok Siddharth were also elected from UP. BJP’s official candidate Shivpratap Shukla also won the election. Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal won from UP, while Union minister Birender Singh of BJP and media baron and BJP-backed Independent candidate Subhash Chandra were elected from Haryana.