Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JDU) will suffer loss of one seat in Rajya Sabha polls even as five members have to be elected from the state.
Since the number of JDU's MLAs has reduced to 45 after the state assembly elections in 2020, JDU can send only one member to the Upper House. Earlier, the party had two members in the Upper House.
As per the schedule for Rajya Sabha polls issued by the Election Commission, elections will be held for 57 seats across the country. Votes would be cast on June 10 and counted after the conclusion of the voting process.
Except Sharad Yadav, the term of other Rajya Sabha members from Bihar union minister RCP Singh (JDU), Gopal Narayan Singh, Satish Chandra Dubey (Both BJP) and Misa Bharti (RJD) will end between June 21 and August 1 this year. Besides RCP Singh, who is steel minister at the centre from JDU quota, another seat held by JDU fell vacant after the death of sitting member Mahendra Prasad aka King Mahendra.
Sharad Yadav was disqualified as a Rajya Sabha MP by chairman on December 4, 2017 after JDU had sought for it as he ha attended an opposition rally in the state capital. The petition said Yadav was disqualified from Rajya Sabha in terms of Paragraph 2 (1) (a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution for purportedly having given up the membership of his party.
A political analyst Pramod Kumar said that it would be interesting to see if RCP accepted the offer of Rajya Sabha seat as the nominee will have a truncated term of two years and will retire in April 2024.
It is speculated that a former IPS officer of Bihar is also vying for Rajya Sabha seat from JDU quota. Even the name of JDU leader K C Tyagi is doing the rounds but he has already made it clear that he is not aware of his possible nomination as the party's top brass takes a final call on such issues.
JDU state president Umesh Kushwaha also said that the top leadership (read Nitish) will decide on the Rajya Sabha nomination issue. However, a senior JDU leader on condition of anonymity said that a family member of Mahendra Prasad, a medicine baron, may be the party's candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat.
All political parties have kept the names of the candidates secret for obvious reason. The probable candidates started lobbying soon after the schedule of the Rajya Sabha polls was announced on Thursday.