Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal in BJP first list of 16 candidates for Rajya Sabha poll

Goyal, who is the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, has been fielded from Maharashtra and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman from Karnataka.

Published: 30th May 2022 07:44 AM  |   Last Updated: 30th May 2022 07:44 AM   |  A+A-

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (Photo | PTI)

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (Photo | PTI)

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday released its first list of 16 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, with Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal being the most prominent faces to be fielded. 

Goyal, who is the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, has been fielded from Maharashtra and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman from Karnataka. The elections for 52 Rajya Sabha seats are scheduled to be held on June 10 in 15 states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Haryana and Maharashtra.

Interestingly, the names of BJP lone Muslim face and Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, and party general secretary Dushyanat Gautam, who was a member of the Upper House from Haryana, were missing in the first list of candidates. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe was another prominent name that did not figure in the list released on Sunday.

Of the 16 candidates announced, six are from Uttar Pradesh — Laxaminkant Vajpayee, Radhamohan Aggarwal, Surendra Singh Nagar, Baburam Nishad, Darshana Singh and Sangita Yadav. Aggarwal had left his Gorakhpur Urban constituency for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to contest in the recent assembly polls.

The party has fielded former MLA Krishna Lal Panwar from Haryana and Kavita Patidar from MP. Actor-turned-politician Jaggesh is the second person nominated by the party from Karnataka.  Apart from Goyal, Anil Deshmukha Bonde will be the second nominee from Maharashtra while Ghanshayam Tewari has been field from Rajasthan. Interestingly, Tiwari is a vocal critic of former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who has an uneasy equation with the BJP’s central leadership.

Kalpana Saini has been given the ticket from Uttarakhand and Satish Chandra Dubey and Shambhu Sharan Patel from Bihar. Sources said the second list of candidatures will also be announced on Monday.
The BJP has tried to maintain social balance with members from all castes, including OBC, SC and ST, being given tickets in the first list.

Shambhu Patel, who is the nominee from Bihar, belongs to extremely backward caste Dhanuk while another nominee from the state, Satish Chandra Dubey, is a Brahmin. The last date for filing of nominations is May 31. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is June 3.

UP has the biggest tally
UP sends 31 members to Rajya Sabha. Among the 11 retiring MPs from the state, five are from the BJP, three from the SP, two from the BSP and one from the Congress.


India Matters

Comments

Disclaimer : We respect your thoughts and views! But we need to be judicious while moderating your comments. All the comments will be moderated by the newindianexpress.com editorial. Abstain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks. Try to avoid outside hyperlinks inside the comment. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines.

The views expressed in comments published on newindianexpress.com are those of the comment writers alone. They do not represent the views or opinions of newindianexpress.com or its staff, nor do they represent the views or opinions of The New Indian Express Group, or any entity of, or affiliated with, The New Indian Express Group. newindianexpress.com reserves the right to take any or all comments down at any time.