New Delhi, Mar 6: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Tuesday announced former MLA Bhim Rao Ambedkar as its nominee to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.

The biennial elections to the Parliament's Upper House is scheduled on March 23. Out of the 59 MPs to be elected, 10 would be representing Uttar Pradesh.

Since the BJP won the state assembly polls with a three-fourth majority last year, the party would succeed in nominating 8 members to the Upper House. The Congress, BSP and Samajwadi party could collectively nominate the remaining two.

According to reports, 14 votes of SP would be left spare after renominating one of its members in Rajya Sabha. The extra votes could be transferred to BSP in lieu of the support extended by the latter to the Akhilesh Yadav-led party in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha bypolls.

About BSP nominee Bhim Rao Ambedkar

A close aide of BSP chief Mayawati, Ambedkar has been involved in the party's top brass since 2002. Describing himself as a Kanshiram-era volunteer of the party, Ambedkar drew spotlight after he wrested Etawah's Lakhna seat from the Samajwadi Party in 2007.

In 2010, he drew flak towards the then Mayawati regime in the state for allegedly issuing a death threat to an irrigation department chief engineer for not installing hand pumps in his assembly constituency.

In 2012, Ambedkar was denied the ticket by BSP and instead, appointed as the party's coordinator in Bundelkhand region. He attempted his return into the UP assembly last year when he contested from Auraiya. However, Ambedkar was defeated by a margin of over 30,000 votes by BJP's Ramesh Chandra.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 06, 2018 08:52 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).