37 elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Friday Jan 31,2014

37 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha today Friday Jan 31,2014 from various states in the biennial polls

Elections will be held in the remaining 18 seats on February 7,2014 in  -

• Andhra Pradesh (6)
• West Bengal (5)
• Odisha (4) and
• Assam (3)

 In Andhra Pradesh, which is in turmoil over Telangana issue, 7 candidates including a Congress rebel, are in fray for 6 seats
Only one of the two rebel candidates - K V V Satyanarayana Raju alias Chaitanya Raju - has withdrawn his nomination while another, Adala Prabhakar Reddy, refused to budge despite strong pressure from the Congress leadership.
Adala Prabhakar Reddy who is currently an MLA, jumped into the Rajya Sabha election fray on the "Samaikya Andhra Pradesh" (United AP) plank, backed by senior-most legislator J C Diwakar Reddy and others.

6 candidates are in fray for 5 seats in West Bengal along with Mithun, painter Jogen Chowdhury and Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand who resigned to contest from West Bengal, K D Singh, are among the candidates of the ruling Trinamool Congress(TMC)
TMC's nominee for the fourth seat is journalist, Ahmed Hassan. Congress is backing sitting RS member Ahmad Saeed Malihabadi as an Independent nominee.
The CPI(M) has fielded Ritabrata Banerjee, General Secretary of the CPI(M)'s student wing, SFI.

5 candidates, including 3 ruling BJD legislators, remained in the race for 4 seats from Odisha
The 3 BJD MLAs - Kalpataru Das, Ananga Uday Singhdeo and Sarojini Hembram - are set to have a smooth sailing in the polls, there would be a contest for the 4th seat between BJD backed Independent candidate, renowned sculptor Raghunath Mohapatra and IPL Chairman and Congress nominee Ranjib Biswal.

4 candidates are in the fray for 3 seats in Assam - sitting Congress and Bodo Peoples' Front (BPF) MPs Bhubaneswar Kalita and Biswajit Daimary respectively along with the other Congress nominee Sanjay Sinh and combined opposition candidate Haidar Hussain


Maharashtra - 7 Seats
Sharad Pawar(NCP)Murali Deora(Congress)Majid Memon (NCP), Hussain Dalwai (Congress), Rajkumar Dhoot (Shiv Sena), Sanjay Kakade (Independent) and Athavale, who was supported by BJP.

Rajasthan - 3 Seats
Vijay Goel,BJP Delhi unit chief,Ram Narain Dudi(BJP) and Narain Pachariy(BJP)

Bihar - 5 Seats
JD(U)'s Ramnath Thakur, Harivansh, Kahkasha Parveen and
BJP's C P Thakur and R K Sinha

Tamil Nadu - 6 Seats
AIADMK -L Sasikala Pushpa, Vijila Satyananth, S Muthukaruppan and AK Selvaraj
DMK -Tiruchi N Siva
CPI(M) - T K Rangarajan


Gujarat - 4 Seats
BJP's Shambhuprasad Tundiya, Chunibhai Gohil and Lalsinh Vadodiya and
Congress's Madhusudan Mistry

Haryana - 2 Seats
Former Union Minister Kumari Selja of Congress and
Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) candidate Ram Kumar Kashyap

Madhya Pradesh  -3 Seats
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh
BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha and party leader Satya Narayan Jatiya

Jharkhand - 2 Seats
Former Union Minister Prem Chand Gupta of RJD and sitting MP Parimal Nathwani

Congress candidates Abdul Salam (Manipur), sitting MP Wansuk Syiem (Meghalaya) and Viplov Thakur (Himchal Pradesh)

Chhattisgarh  -2 Seats
AICC treasurer Motilal Vora and the nephew of late Dilip Singh Judeo, Ranvijay Pratap Singh Judeo