Elections to 24 Rajya Sabha seats in 10 states will be held on June 18, the Election Commission announced on Friday. The move comes in the wake of the retirement of several current members, including former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Digvijaya Singh.
According to the European Commission, the seats will be vacant between June 21 and July 19, when elections will be held. The deadline for submitting nominations is June 8.
Elections will be held on four seats each in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka, three seats each in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two seats in Jharkhand, and one seat each in Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.
The retirees include Gowda and Congress chief Kharge (both from Karnataka), Union ministers Ravneet Singh (Rajasthan) and George Kurian (Madhya Pradesh), former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh and Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, among others.
In Rajasthan, Rajya Sabha members Ravneet Singh, Neeraj Dhange (Congress) and Rajendra Gehlot (BJP) were among those who completed their terms.
Rajasthan has 10 seats in the Rajya Sabha, while the BJP and Congress currently hold five each. Based on the current strength of the 200-member state assembly, the BJP is expected to win two of the three seats, while the Congress is likely to get one seat, news agency PTI reported.
(People in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu).
The EC also announced by-elections for one seat each in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
In Maharashtra, the seat fell vacant after the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar, who has since been elected to the state assembly.
NDA led by TDP to win all four RS seats
According to PTI, the TDP-led NDA is expected to win all four Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming elections. Several members from the southern state are scheduled to retire, including Ayodhya Ramy Reddy, P Subhaschandra Bose and S Satish Babu.
Among the retired members, Reddy, Natwani Parimal and Bose are from YSRCP, while Babu represents the ruling TDP. At present, the YSRCP holds seven seats in the Rajya Sabha, while the TDP has two. These numbers are expected to change after the June 18 elections.
Sources indicate that the TDP may contest two seats in the Rajya Sabha, while its allies BJP and Janasena are likely to be allotted one seat each.
In the state assembly, TDP has 135 MLAs, followed by Janasena with 21 and BJP with 8, while YSRCP has 11 legislators.
