Elections for 37 Rajya Sabha seats - which will fall vacant in April - will take place across 10 states on March 16, the Election Commission said Wednesday morning.
The majority of these seats are in Maharashtra (7) and Tamil Nadu (6), with Bihar and Bengal offering five each. Apart from these, four seats will fall vacant in Odisha, three in Assam, two each in Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana, and one in Himachal Pradesh.
In addition, the terms of several senior political leaders, from the ruling BJP and the opposition, are set to expire, potentially re-drawing boundaries and battle lines in the Upper House.
Among these are Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge (Karnataka), as well as NCP leader Sharad Pawar, the Shiv Sena's Priyanka Chaturvedi, and Republican Party boss Ramdas Athawale from Maharashtra. In Telangana, the Congress' Abhishek Manu Singhvi's term comes to an end.
Eighty-five-year-old Sharad Pawar, the biggest name in Maharashtra politics, has expressed his desire to contest another election, the Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut has said.
Pawar, citing his age, had previously said he would not contest another poll; in a political career spanning 50+ years, the former union minister has contested 14 polls and won every time.
The term of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh (Bihar) will also end.
The process of electing Rajya Sabha MPs is different since seats are allocated based on the population of each state, and the voting itself is by elected members of the Lok Sabha and each state's Legislative Assembly. As a result, the strength of each party is an important factor.
There is a formula to calculate how many votes are needed to win a seat in a state.
In August last year the BJP's Rajya Sabha tally crossed 100 for the first time since 2022, handing the ruling party a boost in its attempt to control both Houses and enforce passage of its bills.
The last contest for these seats was in 2020, when the BJP and its allies enjoyed dominant positions in Assam, Bihar, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh. In Maharashtra the BJP and Congress, and the then-undivided Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party, shared the seats.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK won a majority of the seats, while state parties Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal were the big winners in Bengal and Odisha, respectively.
