Bhopal, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates Tarun Chugh and Rajneesh Agrawal on Saturday filed their nominations for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from Madhya Pradesh.
The two candidates submitted their nominations at the state assembly complex here in the afternoon in the presence of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and senior party leaders.
Voting for the three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to take place on June 18, and the last date for filing of nominations is June 9.
The BJP has fielded Chugh and Agrawal for the biennial polls, while the Congress has nominated former MP Meenakshi Natarajan.
Chugh is BJP national general secretary, while Agrawal is party's MP state secretary.
Before the submission of the nominations, the BJP held a meeting of its MLAs at the party's state headquarters in Bhopal.
CM Yadav, BJP state president Hemant Khandelwal and the two Rajya Sabha candidates attended the meeting, during which party leaders discussed poll-related preparations and organisational coordination.
After the meeting, Yadav, Khandelwal and the candidates, among others, offered prayers at the Shiva and Hanuman temples located inside the BJP office premises. The leaders later left for the assembly in a convoy of more than 15 vehicles to file the nomination papers.
In the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly, the BJP has 164 MLAs and is comfortably placed to win two of the three seats. The Congress has 64 members in the House. While one seat is held by the Bharat Adivasi Party and another assembly seat is lying vacant.
On Friday, senior BJP leader and state minister Kailash Vijayvargiya had triggered speculation about the possibility of a third BJP candidate, saying the party would make all efforts to ensure victory if it decided to field one.
