Lucknow, October 5, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced eight candidates for the upcoming biennial elections to 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh, with polling scheduled for October 16.
The announcement came a day before the deadline for filing nominations. The BJP has nominated Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and Shruti Gangwar for the Upper House elections.
The candidate list reflects the party’s effort to balance demographic considerations and caste equations while also maintaining representation for women. Priyanka Singh Rawat and Shruti Gangwar are the two women candidates among the BJP’s eight nominees.
The BJP is expected to win seven of the 10 seats comfortably based on its strength in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which has 101 MLAs in the 403-member House, is in a position to secure two seats.
The SP has already nominated former Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav and Dhanraj Nathwani, a senior executive at Reliance Industries Limited.
The contest for the remaining, or 10th, seat is expected to be closely watched, with both the BJP and SP likely to marshal their electoral strength. The possibility of cross-voting has also added an element of uncertainty to the contest.
The BJP had on Sunday announced candidates for one Rajya Sabha seat each in West Bengal and Uttarakhand.
With 116 members, the BJP is currently the single largest party in the 245-member Rajya Sabha. A strong performance in the upcoming biennial elections is expected to further strengthen the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s numbers in the Upper House.
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