<span style="color: #222222;">The BJP yesterday announced the names of its 18 candidates for the upcoming elections to the Rajya Sabha. Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman will be the party candidate from Karnataka while Union Minister Piyush Goyal will contest from Maharashtra. The 18 candidates include 6 from Uttar Pradesh, three from Maharashtra, one each from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Haryana and two each from Karnataka and Bihar.<br />''<br />''The Party has fielded Surendra Singh Nagar, Darshana Singh and Sangeeta Yadav from Uttar Pradesh while  Dr Kalpana Saini will contest from Uttarakhand.  Ghanshaym Tiwari will be the BJP candidate from Rajasthan, Aditya Sahu from Jharkhand, Satish Chandra Dubey from Bihar and  Krishan Lal Panwar from Haryana Rajya Sabha seat.<br />''<br />''Congress party also announced its candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha election, fielding Rajeev Shukla and Ranjeet Rajan from Chhattisgarh, Ajay Maken from Haryana and Jairam Ramesh from Karnataka. Randeep Singh Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari have been fielded from Rajasthan, while Vivek Tankha from Madhya Pradesh. Former Union minister P Chidambaram is the party's candidate from Tamil Nadu.</span><br />