New Delhi, May 29 (IANS): The BJP on Sunday announced 16 candidates for the Rajya Sabha biennial elections from different states.

The party has fielded Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman from Karnataka and Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra.

In a statement, BJP national general secretary Arun Singh said that the party's Central Election Committee has approved 16 names for the Rajya Sabha elections.

BJP has fielded finance minister Sitharaman and actor-turned-politician Jaggesh from Karnataka, while Kavita Patidar will contest from Madhya Pradesh. From Maharashtra, Union minister Goyal and Anil Sukhdevrao Bonde have been fielded.

From Uttar Pradesh, Laxmikant Vajpayee, Radhamohan AAggarwal, Surendra Singh Nagar, Baburam Nishad, Darshana Singh and Sangeeta Yadav have been fielded.

In Bihar, the saffron party has given tickets to Satish Chandra Dubey and Shambhu Sharan Patel. The BJP has fielded Kalpana Saini from Uttarakhand, Krishan Lal Panwar from Haryana and Ghanshyam Tiwari from Rajasthan.

Biennial elections for 57 Rajya Sabha seats will be held across 15 states on June 10.