The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday released its list of 16 candidates for elections to the Rajya Sabha. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will contest from Karnataka, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal will contest the RS polls from Maharashtra.

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

       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.

       The party has given ticket to former MLA Krishan Lal Panwar from Haryana.

       Kavita Patidar will be the party's nominee from Madhya Pradesh, Ghanshyam Tiwari from Rajasthan and Kalpana Saini from Uttarakhand.

       From Bihar, the party has fielded Satish Chandra Dubey and Shambhu Sharan Patel.

       Anil Sukhdevrao Bonde has been nominated from Maharashtra and Jaggesh from Karnataka, according to a BJP release.

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       Meanwhile, the Congress party has finalised the name of Vivek Tankha for the Rajya Sabha elections slated for 10 June, the party's Madhya Pradesh unit chief Kamal Nath has said.

       Of 11 Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh, eight are with the BJP and three with Congress.

       The terms of Vivek Tankha, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, as well as that of BJP's MJ Akbar and Sampatiya Uike will end in June.

       The BJP's Rajya Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh are Jyotiraditya Scindia, L Murugan, Dharmendra Pradhan, M J Akbar, Ajay Pratap Singh, Kailash Soni, Sumer Singh Solanki and Sampatiya Uike.

       The Congress' Rajya Sabha MPs from the state are Mr Tankha, former chief minister Digvijaya Singh and Rajmani Patel.

       Odisha Chief Minister and ruling BJD president Naveen Patnaik has also announced names of four candidates of his party for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.

       The Biju Janata Dal named three new candidates - Sulata Deo, Manas Ranjan Mangaraj and Niranjan Bishi - and renominated Sasmit Patra for the polls to the Upper House of Parliament.

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