- Elections for 37 Rajya Sabha seats, including five in Bihar, are set for March 16
- Bihar's NDA can easily win four seats; the fifth requires opposition support
- AIMIM decided to field its own candidate, complicating opposition unity in Bihar
Elections to fill 37 Rajya Sabha seats across 10 states are scheduled for March 16, with five seats in Bihar set to become vacant following the retirement of incumbent members.
Bihar has 16 seats in the upper house of Parliament. The retiring members are Harivansh Narayan Singh and Ram Nath Thakur of the Janata Dal (United), Prem Chand Gupta and Amarendra Dhari Singh of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Morcha.
On current assembly numbers, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has sufficient strength to win four of the five seats without difficulty. The opposition Grand Alliance, which comprises the RJD, Congress, and three Left parties, has 35 MLAs: 25 from the RJD, six from Congress, two from the CPI(ML) Liberation, and one each from the CPI and the Indian Inclusive Party (IIP).
A single Rajya Sabha seat in Bihar requires 41 first-preference votes for election. If the five MLAs of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the one BSP MLA were to support a Grand Alliance candidate, the opposition would reach exactly 41 votes and could secure the fifth seat.
However, the AIMIM has now decided to field its own candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections. The party's Bihar president, Akhtarul Iman, has announced that the AIMIM will contest and has called on other opposition parties, including the RJD, to extend support.
The move is widely seen as a response to the breakdown in relations between the AIMIM and the RJD during the 2020 Bihar assembly elections. At that time, AIMIM representatives visited the residence of RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav to request an alliance, but the offer was rejected.
The subsequent campaign saw sharp exchanges between the two parties. The AIMIM eventually won five assembly seats, while the RJD secured 25. Sources within the RJD indicate that the party had been considering nominating its sitting Rajya Sabha member Amarendra Dhari Singh as a candidate for one of the seats.
Singh is a prominent trader in chemicals and fertilisers with substantial business interests in Hyderabad. It had been hoped that his Hyderabad connections might help secure AIMIM support. The AIMIM's decision to field its own candidate appears to have pre-empted that strategy.
RJD leaders say they remain hopeful that discussions with the AIMIM and other opposition groups can resolve the issue and preserve unity. They insist that an opposition candidate will still be put forward.
The NDA has the votes to elect four candidates comfortably: two from the BJP and two from the JD(U). Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan has already stated that his party is not seeking a Rajya Sabha berth.
If the NDA chooses to contest the fifth seat, it would need three additional votes beyond its current surplus, which would require cross-voting by opposition MLAs. No such cross-voting has taken place in Bihar Rajya Sabha elections during Nitish Kumar's tenure as Chief Minister.
The coming weeks will therefore determine whether the opposition can maintain sufficient cohesion to return one member, or whether the NDA will attempt to claim all five seats. The contest in Bihar is now likely to be the most closely watched of the forthcoming Rajya Sabha polls.
