The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party has nominated Nabam Rebia as the partys candidate for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Arunachal Pradesh, a party leader said here on Monday.
The party announced the name of Rebia on Sunday night, he said.
Mr. Rebia, who represented the state in the Rajya Sabha for two consecutive terms from 1996 to 2002 and 2002 to 2008 as Congress candidate, also served the state as Speaker and Cabinet Minister.
He served as Speaker in the Nabam Tuki-led Congress government and later served as the Urban Development, Town Planning, Housing, Urban Local Bodies and Law and Justice Minister in BJP-led Pema Khandu government.
On September 2016, he was one of 43 MLAs from the ruling Congress who defected to People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA), an ally of the BJP under the leadership of Chief Minister Pema Khandu.
In December the same year, he along with 33 MLAs from the PPA joined the BJP after PPA suspended Mr. Pema Khandu along with 6 other MLAs.
The Election Commission of India on June 2 had issued notification for holding elections to the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Arunachal Pradesh which will fall vacant on June 23 this year.
While polling would be held on June 19 if required, the last date of filing nominations has been fixed on June 9 while scrutiny of papers would be held on June 10.
The last date of withdrawal of papers has been fixed on June 12, the notification said.
Mukut Mithi of the Congress is the incumbent Rajya Sabha MP from the northeast state.
The 60-member Arunachal Pradesh assembly has 41 BJP MLAs followed by seven Janata Dal United (JDU) members, Congress 4, National Peoples Party (NPP) 4, Peoples Party of Arunachal 1 and three independents.
The JD (U) and NPP have extended their support to the Pema Khandu-led BJP government in the state including the three Independents.