The Congress on Saturday named former union ministers P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Jairam Ramesh, Ambika Soni and Oscar Fernandes as its candidates for the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha.The party's list of eight candidates from seven states also included Pradeep Tamta, Vivek Tankha and Chhaya Verma. A party release said that the names had been finalised by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in consultation with leaders from different states.
The party has nominated Chidambaram from Maharashtra after the party's poor showing in the recent Tamil Nadu assembly polls. Ambika Soni has been retained from Punjab and Oscar Fernandes from Karnataka. The party has also decided to send Ramesh to the upper house from Karnataka. Tamta will be party nominee from Uttarakhand, Tankha from Madhya Pradesh and Verma from Chhattisgarh.