Jaipur: Former Union Minister Jaswant Singh and Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha Najma Heptullah are among five candidates who were today (June 21, 2004) declared elected unopposed to the Upper House of Parliament from Rajasthan.

The others are Congress' Santosh Bagrodiya, a Kolkata-based businessman, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president L K Chaturvedi and Gyan Prakash Pilania, former DGP and patron of Rajasthan Jat Mahasabha.

As the deadline to withdraw nominations ended at 15:00 hrs (IST) today, the State Assembly Secretary and Returning Officer H R Punia said there were five candidates for equal number of seats, hence the election was not necessary now.

Elections were held for five seats as the terms of Jaswant Singh, Laxmi Mal Singhvi (both BJP), Santosh Bagrodiya and Imamudin Ahmed (both Congress) end in July. The fifth seat fell vacant due to death of Congress' Abrar Ahmed last month.

With this election, Congress lost two seats to BJP. Now, it has six of the 10 seats from the State and BJP the remaining four.