Rajya Sabha elections: From Piyush Goyal to Ajay Maken, here's a list of key candidates

After 41 winners were declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha last week, polls will now be held for 16 seats in four states – Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Haryana. The polls for the Upper House of Parliament are scheduled to be held on June 10. Ahead of the much-anticipated Rajya Sabha polls, let’s look at the key candidates from the four states who will be under the spotlight. 

Rajya Sabha elections will be held for 16 seats and all major parties in the states including the BJP, Congress, NCP, and JDS have all lined up candidates. Among the big names in the fight for the final seats are BJP’s Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman. Congress’ Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Surjewala, Ajay Maken, Sanjay Raut of Shiv Sena and NCP’s Praful Patel are all leaders who populate the key candidates' list for the upcoming polls.

Maharashtra key candidates (6 seats)

• Piyush Goyal (BJP)
• Anil Bonde (BJP)
• Dhananjay Mahadik (BJP)
• Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena)
• Sanjay Pawar (Shiv Sena)
• Imran Pratapgarhi (Congress)
• Praful Patel (NCP)

Rajasthan key candidates (4 seats)

• Ghanshyam Tiwari (BJP)
• Randeep Surjewala (Congress)
• Mukul Wasnik (Congress)
• Pramod Tiwari (Congress)
• Subhash Chandra (Independent backed by BJP)

Karnataka key candidates (4 seats)

• Nirmala Sitharaman (BJP)
• Jaggesh (BJP)
• Lahar Singh Siroya (BJP)
• Jairam Ramesh (Congress)
• Mansoor Ali Khan (Congress)
• Kupendra Reddy (JDS)

Haryana key candidates (2 seats)

• Ajay Maken (Congress)
• Krishan Pal Panwar (BJP)
• Kartikeya Sharma (Independent backed by BJP)

Rajya Sabha elections

The Rajya Sabha polls will be held on June 10 and the results are expected to be declared on the same day. The last day for filing nominations was May 31, while the last date for withdrawal of candidature was June 3. Elections were announced to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states that will be falling vacant due to the retirement of members between June and August. Following this, 41 candidates were declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.

P Chidambaram and Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, BJP's Sumitra Valmiki and Kavita Patidar, former Congress leader Kapil Sibal, RJD's Misa Bharti and Jayant Chaudhary of the RLD were among the names elected unopposed to the Upper House of the Parliament. All the 11 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, six in Tamil Nadu, five in Bihar, four in Andhra Pradesh, three each in Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, two each in Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Telangana and Jharkhand and one candidate in Uttarakhand won seats without a contest at the polls.

Image: PTI