NEW DELHI: The NDA led by BJP, which announced the names of four candidates from Maharashtra to the Upper House on Wednesday, is set to make gains when elections to the 37 Rajya Sabha seats are held on March 16. At present, NDA holds 12 of the 37 seats in the Upper House, while the remaining 25 are with the Opposition parties. However, in several states such as Bihar, Odisha and Maharashtra, the Opposition’s legislative strength has declined, which would end up favouring NDA, which is likely to increase its tally to 21.
In all, 72 seats in the 245-strong Rajya Sabha are due to fall vacant this year. Of this, 37 from 10 states – Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana, will go to polls on March 16 for vacancies arising in April, while the remainder will fall vacant in the coming months.
At present, the NDA is in power in six of the 10 states from which Rajya Sabha seats are to be filled. The BJP is also the single largest party in the Rajya Sabha with 103 members. In contrast, the Congress-led Opposition, which is in power in four of these 10 states, currently holds 80 members in the Upper House.
In April, seven seats are falling vacant from Maharashtra, six from Tamil Nadu, five each from West Bengal and Bihar, four from Odisha, three from Assam, two each from Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Haryana, and one from Himachal Pradesh.
The Rajya Sabha members from Maharashtra retiring this year include NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar; Minister of State Ramdas Athawale, who heads RPI (A); Fauzia Khan of NCP (SP); Rajni Patil (Congress); Priyanka Chaturvedi of Shiv Sena (UBT); and BJP leaders Dhananjay Patil and Bhagwat Karad. In Maharashtra, now under Mahayuti governance, the NDA is likely to secure all six seats, and five from Bihar due to its majority in the state legislative assembly with 202 members.
In the Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal, the BJP is likely to win only one Rajya Sabha seat, while the ruling TMC is set to win the remaining four. Besides BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde, BJP also announced the name of Athawale, Maya Chintaman Ivnate and Ramrao Wadkute from Maharashtra for the biennial elections to the Upper House.