The Election Commission has officially confirmed that polling for 26 seats in the Rajya Sabha will be held. This is part of the biennial elections held for the upper house of parliament every two years. The elections for the 26 seats are scheduled to take place across 12 states.
Several MPs are nearing the completion of their terms; these include former prime minister Deve Gowda, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, and two Union ministers – Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian.
Among the states where elections are to be held, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka will vote for four seats each; Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for three seats each, and Jharkhand for two seats.
Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have one seat each. By-elections will also be held for one seat each in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu on June 18.
Of the 26 seats currently going to the polls, the NDA holds 18, the Congress 4, YSR Congress 3 and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha one.
However, following the elections, the NDA is projected to lose one seat, bringing the tally down to 17, while the Congress’s count is expected to rise from 4 to 5. Concurrently, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is set to secure two seats.
Additionally, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s party, TVK, is expected to win one seat, as is the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). These two seats are the ones for which by-elections will be held, and the tenure for these specific seats will be limited to two years.
Currently, out of the 244 seats in the Rajya Sabha, the NDA holds 149, while the Opposition holds 78 seats. There are also 17 seats held by parties that are aligned with neither the NDA nor the Opposition bloc INDIA.
Following the DMK’s withdrawal from the INDIA alliance, these figures may undergo further realignment. Of the four seats in Karnataka, three are expected to go to the Congress and one to the BJP.
Meanwhile, in both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan- each having three seats – two seats apiece are projected to go to the BJP, while one each will fall to the Congress.
Similarly, the BJP is poised to win all four seats in Gujarat; this would mark the first time that the Congress will have no MP representing Gujarat in the Rajya Sabha, whereas in Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party is set to win all four seats.
In Jharkhand, the alliance between the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Congress is expected to win both seats; according to Congress sources, the party may request one of these seats from Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
An MP from another state, whose term is drawing to a close, is also said to be interested in entering the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand.
The BJP could potentially field its own candidate in Jharkhand to create difficulties for the JMM-Congress alliance through cross-voting, much as they did in Bihar. The BJP needs to secure seats for two of its ministers – Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian. The BJP will undoubtedly want to bring Bittu into the Rajya Sabha, given that assembly elections are scheduled to take place in Punjab next year.
While it is all but certain that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will enter the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka, there is intense speculation regarding Kamal Nath’s nomination from Madhya Pradesh.
The biggest question remains whether the BJP will extend its support to former Deve Gowda for a Rajya Sabha seat from Karnataka, or if it will field its own candidate, since the BJP is in a position to secure only one seat from the state.