Bharatiya Janata Party leaders list of 18 candidates for election to the Rajya Sabha seats from states of Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Bihar and Gujarat and also cleared the names of sixty party candidates for 65 seats in the first phase of the Assam assembly elections for which the process began on March 10, 2006. Names for the five seats would be announced later.

While Miss Sushma Swaraj has been accommodated from Madhya Pradesh, Arun Jaitley has been nominated as the party's first choice from Gujarat. Announcing the names Pramod Mahajan, party general secretary, denied that the claims of the local candidates have been overlooked while deciding names for the upper house.

"There are two outsiders namely Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley but they are outstanding leaders and the two have been accepted by the Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat state units," Mahajan told newsmen at a press conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Monday evening.

Bal Apte has been nominated from Maharashtra, while Surinder Singh Ahluwalia has been given the party ticket from Jharkhand. Ravi Shankar Prasad, former minister for information and broadcasting in the Vajpayee government has been given ticket from home state of Bihar. Vinay Katiyar and Kalraj Misra would contest on the party ticket from Uttar Pradesh.

"There are two women, two scheduled caste and two schedule tribe candidates in the list of eighteen candidates," Mahajan said.
In case of Assam all the sixty names recommended by the state party unit have been approved and the party chief Rajnath Singh has been authorised to take a decision regarding five other seats in consultation with the Assam BJP unit. Seven women candidates have been given a green signal to contest on the party ticket in Assam. BJP had eight MLAs in the last assembly.

BJP central election committee would meet again on March 17 to decide the second list comprising of 61 candidates.