In a surprise nomination, outgoing Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha Najma Heptulla, who drifted away from the Congress during the Lok Sabha election, was given a ticket by the Bharatiya Janata Party for the June 28 Rajya Sabha biennial elections along with defeated leaders Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha.

Among the 18 candidates decided by the BJP today, party chief M Venkaiah Naidu, former finance minister Jaswant Singh and general secretary Pramod Mahajan have been renominated from Karnataka, Rajasthan and Maharashtra respectively.

There were surprise nominations when Delhi hotelier Lalit Suri, former minister S Thirunavukkarasar and Shakuntala Hegde, widow of former Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde, have been given tickets from Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.

Former Union minister Dilip Singh Judev who was involved in cash-on-camera scam has been renominated from Chhattisgarh.

Heptulla, a three-time Congress member of the Upper House from Maharasthra, will now contest from Rajasthan. She had attacked Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in the run up to the Lok Sabha election and had praised the BJP.

Another person to be rewarded is Thirunavukkarasar who was denied ticket in the Lok Sabha under pressure from All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa. He will now contest from Madhya Pradesh.

Former union minister Chattarpal Singh who had given up his Bulandshahr Lok Sabha seat for party vice president and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh has also been nominated.

Names of another candidate from Uttar Pradesh and one from Haryana has been left to party president to decide.

Besides Jaswant Singh and Heptulla, the other two candidates from Rajasthan are chief of the BJP state unit Lalith Kishore Chaturvedi and Gyan Prakash Pilania.

Former minister Captain Jai Narain Nishad who joined the BJP during the recent Lok Sabha election is the party candidate from Bihar.

Senior BJP leader Pyarelal Khandelwal is among the four candidates from Madhya Pradesh, besides Thirunavukkarassar. The other two from the state are Dalit leader Narain Singh Kesari and former Madhya Pradesh minister Laxmi Narayan Sharma.

The party has also put up a youth leader from Orissa, Rudra Narain Pani, besides Suri.

The names were announced by Secretary of the BJP Central Election Committee, Shivraj Singh Chauhan after a two and a half hour long meeting chaired by Naidu. It was attended by among others former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Lal Kishenchand Advani, Jaswant Singh, Joshi, Arun Jaitley, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Mahajan.