The former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Narayan Rane has accepted the offer to fight in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from theBJP ticket.
Rane will file the nomination papers from the partyquota for the biennial Rajya Sabha seat on March 12.
The electionsto the 58 seats of theupper house of the Parliament are scheduled for March 23.
Rane was part ofCongress for over a decade. He had joined the party in 2005 afterquitting from Shiv Sena.
He ended his longtime association with Congress in September 2017 accusingthe party that it was not fulfilling its promise of appointinghim as the chief minister of Maharashtra.
After quitting Congress, Rane formed his own party called the Maharashtra Swabhiman Party and allied with BJP led NDA.