New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday (October 5) announced the names of its eight candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha election from Uttar Pradesh, reported Indian Express.Notably, the saffron party has not nominated incumbent Union minister for petroleum and natural gas Hardeep Singh Puri – at present a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh – for another term.Puri was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh in 2020.The list of candidates announced on Monday by the BJP for the Rajya Sabha elections include former Lok Sabha MP Priyanka Singh Rawat along with Shruti Gangwar, who is the daughter of Jharkhand Governor Santosh Gangwar and prominent member of the Uttar Pradesh BJP.The party’s other candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh are Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, and Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan.The election is set to take place on October 16.The election is being necessitated as 10 Rajya Sabha seats are falling vacant in Uttar Pradesh. At present, eight of these seats are currently held by the BJP, while the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) hold one each.Notably, Union minister Puri, who has not been nominated for another Rajya Sabha term has been facing pressure from the opposition to resign after his email exchanges with Jefrrey Epstein made their way to parliament, with leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi raising the matter during his speech in the Lok Sabha in February.Puri has given a slew of television interviews to big media in which he denied any wrongdoing while admitting to having met Epstein.The Wire had previously extensively reported on at Puri’s many explanations over the allegations about his association with Epstein.The email exchanges between Puri and Epstein were part of those that were made public by the US Justice Department on January 30 along with thousands of files linked to Epstein, the convicted American sex offender.Puri has defended this in his interviews and said he is approached by many people for visas, and he put them in touch with two others who asked them to apply online and said, “Is this showing a favour?”