Bhopal, Mar 9: In a major overnight political development, Bharatiya Janata Party Election Committee panel slashed names of 21 party leaders to just 11 for the three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh.

On Saturday, the panel had selected 21 party leaders to be forwarded to the Central BJP Election Committee to finalise the candidature.

The names of prominent party leaders that figure in the list of eleven are - Sunderlal Patwa, Anil Madhav Dave, Kaptan Singh Solanki, Prabhat Jha, Raghunandan Sharma, Kailash Narayan Sarang, Ravinandan Singh, Jayshree Banerjee, Lallu Singh, Sudhakar Rao Bapat and Phulchand Verma. Name of present Rajya Sabha member Maya Singh is also doing the round, maintained top level party sources.

The election committee panel on Saturday opposed nomination of 'ousider' for Rajya sabha. However, the names that figured were Sunderlal Patwa, Prabhat Jha, Krishna Murari Moghe, Kaptan Singh Solanki, Raghunandan Sharma, Maya Singh, Balbir Punj, Sudhakar bapat, Sheetla Sahay, Ravinandan Singh, Anil Madhav Dave, Mangeram Gupta, Jaibhan Singh Pawaiyaa, Sudha Malaiya, Jaishree Banerjee, Bhupendra Singh, Keshav Pandey, Lallu Singh, Phulchand Verma, Dr Jitendra Jamdar, Jaibhan Singh Pawaiyaa and Kailash Sarang.

It was journalist Balbir Punj who hailed from the other State. For the opposition of outsiders members cited the reason that during the election year the message would go negative among the party workers.

The Central BJP Election Committee is all set to meet March 10 to take a final decision in this regard. It will be only after the meeting a clear picture about the party's candidature to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh will surface.

The voting to the election to three Rajya Sabha seats from the State will take place on March 28 between 9 am to 4 pm. The earlier election schedule for March 26 has been rescheduled to March 28 following on account of Rangpanchami festival on that day.