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Updated: May 28, 2019 07:28 IST

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday named its former Lok Sabha MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa for the Rajya Sabha election in Assam, scheduled to be held on June 7.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Santiuse Kujur (both from the Congress) will complete their terms in the upper house next month, and the BJP-led alliance is expected to win both the seats.

In 126-member Assam assembly, the BJP has 61 MLAs while its allies, the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bodoland People’s Front, have 14 and 12 MLAs, respectively.

The BJP, however, has not named a candidate for the second seat, and is expected to support the AGP candidate. The AGP had walked out of the Assam government in January this year, protesting against the BJP’s position on the Citizenship Amendment Bill. It returned to the NDA in March.

Speculations were rife that the BJP may back the Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan’s bid to enter Assam, in return of leaving one Lok Sabha seat for the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar. Instead of seven lok Sabha seats in 2014, the LJP contested only six this time on assurance that Paswan will be sent to the Rajya Sabha.

A BJP leader said Paswan may be fielded from some other state.

Tasa, who belongs to the tea tribe community, was elected to the Lok Sabha from Jorhat in 2014, but the BJP denied him ticket from this seat.

The BJP also named its candidates for the MLC elections, for one seat each in Bihar and Maharashtra. It has fielded Radha Mohan Sharma from Bihar and Pruthvi Raj Deshmukh from Maharashtra.