New Delhi: The BJP declared 16 candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections on June 10th, including Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman from Maharashtra and Karnataka, respectively. Six of the sixteen contenders are from Uttar Pradesh. Former BJP MLA Radha Mohan Das Aggarwal, who abandoned his Gorakhpur Urban constituency to run in the recent assembly elections for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, was among the candidates, news agency PTI reported.
The party has also fielded former state unit president Laxmikant Vajpayee, incumbent Rajya Sabha MP Surendra Singh Nagar, and Bauburam Nishad, chairperson of the UP Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation, all from Uttar Pradesh.
The party has fielded two women from the state, Darshana Singh and Sangeeta Yadav. Singh is a former state president of the party's women's section, while Yadav is a former Gorakhpur MLA from Chauri Chaura.
The party named two candidates from Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Bihar, as well as one from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Haryana.
Union ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, whose terms are coming to an end, were not included on the BJP's first list of candidates.
The name of BJP general secretary Dushyant Gautam, a Rajya Sabha member from Haryana, was also left off the first list of candidates.
Former Haryana MLA Krishan Lal Panwar has been handed a ticket by the party.
The party will nominate Kavita Patidar from Madhya Pradesh, Ghanshyam Tiwari from Rajasthan, and Kalpana Saini from Uttarakhand.
Satish Chandra Dubey and Shambhu Sharan Patel are the party's candidates from Bihar.
According to a BJP announcement, Union Commerce & Industry Minister Goyal and Anil Sukhdevrao Bonde have been nominated from Maharashtra.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and actor-turned-politician Jaggesh will be the party's Karnataka nominees.
Elections will be conducted on June 10 to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states that have become vacant owing to the retirement of members between June and August. The deadline for submitting nominations is May 31.
(With Inputs From PTI)