Rajya Sabha elections: BJP fields Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra, Nirmala Sitharaman from Karnataka

The BJP on Sunday announced 16 candidates for the June 10 Rajya Sabha polls, fielding Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman from Maharashtra and Karnataka respectively.

Both are up for re-election as their terms are set to end. Polling will be held for 57 seats spread across 15 states on June 10. These elections will be crucial as they take place ahead of the Presidential elections due in July.  

Of the 16 candidates, six are from Uttar Pradesh. The party has fielded two women -- Darshana Singh and Sangeeta Yadav -- from the state.

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The party announced the names of two candidates each from Karnataka, Maharashtra and Bihar and one candidate each from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Haryana.

The name of BJP general secretary Dushyant Gautam, who was a Rajya Sabha member from Haryana, was missing from the first list of candidates.

Haryana - Former MLA Krishan Lal Panwar

Madhya Pradesh - Kavita Patidar

Rajasthan - Ghanshyam Tiwari 

Uttarakhand - Kalpana Saini 

Bihar - Satish Chandra Dubey, Shambhu Sharan Patel.

Maharashtra - Anil Sukhdevrao Bonde, Piyush Goyal   

Karnataka – Jaggesh, Nirmala Sitharaman

Uttar Pradesh - Laxmikant Vajpayee, Radhamohan Aggarwal, Surendra Singh Nagar, Baburam Nishad, Darshana Singh, Sangeeta Yadav   
 
Of the 57 seats that are going to the polls, the BJP has 23 seats while eight are held by Congress.

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