New Delhi/Patna: Former Union minister and BJP’s national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain was named by the party on Saturday its MLC candidate from Bihar.
The announcement marks Hussain’s return to electoral politics, albeit to the state level, for the first time since 2014 when he lost the Lok Sabha election from Bhagalpur. He was not given ticket in the 2019 polls.
In the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, he had held the civil aviation portfolio among other charges.
The party also named six more candidates for the legislative council polls in Uttar Pradesh.
They are Kunwar Manvendra Singh, Govind Narayan Shukla, Salil Bishnoi, Ashwini Tyagi, Dharmveer Prajapati and Surendra Chaudhary.
Polling for 12 legislative council seats in Uttar Pradesh and two in Bihar will be held on January 28.
The win of BJP candidates in these seats is all but certain owing to the party’s strength in respective state assemblies.
Two MLC seats in Bihar have been vacated after the elections of former state minister Vinod Narayan Jha to the assembly from Benipatti seat in Madhubani district and of former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi to Rajya Sabha.
Sources in the BJP said in Patna one seat will go to ally Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) president and state minister Mukesh Sahni.
The BJP had spared 11 seats for the VIP from its quota in the Bihar polls. Sahni had lost assembly election but was made a minister in the new NDA government.
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