The stage is about for essential Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday through which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hopes to additional improve its energy within the Upper House of Parliament.
Out of 56 seats for which the Election Commission introduced the ballot schedule final month, as many as 41 together with former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new social gathering entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan have been elected unopposed whereas the polling on remaining 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 4 in Karnataka and 1 in Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka will happen on February 27.
Polling is scheduled from 9 am to 4 pm, adopted by the vote rely on the identical day from 5 pm onwards.
The official notification for these elections was issued on February 8, and the deadline for submitting nominations was closed on February 15. The time period of workplace for 50 Rajya Sabha MPs representing 13 states is slated to conclude on April 2, whereas the remaining six members from two states will full their tenure on April 3.
Among 56 seats, Uttar Pradesh has 10, Bihar and Maharashtra have six every, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal have 5 every, Gujarat and Karnataka have 4 every, and Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Rajasthan have three every. Additionally, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand every have one seat.
Rajya Sabha: Understanding The FrameworkÂ
The Rajya Sabha, also called the Upper House of Parliament, takes inspiration from the United Kingdom’s House of Lords. Presently, it includes 245 members, with 233 chosen by elections and 12 nominated.
According to constitutional provisions, the Upper House’s membership is capped at 250. Out of the 233 elected members, illustration is drawn from states and Union Territories (UTs), whereas the President of India appoints the remaining 12 people, who should show experience within the realms of artwork, literature, science, and social companies.
Rajya Sabha, in accordance with the structure, features because the Council of States, the distribution of seats on this chamber is set by the inhabitants of every state.
Rajya Sabha Election Process & Tenure
MPs are elected utilizing the only transferable vote by an open poll system. In the Rajya Sabha elections, members of a state’s Legislative Assembly take part in what is called proportional illustration with the only transferable vote (STV) system.
Each vote forged by a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is taken into account as soon as. The tenure of a Rajya Sabha member spans six years, with one-third of the members retiring each second 12 months, being subsequently changed by newly elected members. In the occasion of a member’s demise, disqualification, or resignation, by-elections are performed to fill the vacant place.
How Are Rajya Sabha Members Elected?
While it could be presumed that political events dominating the Lok Sabha would have a proportional affect within the Rajya Sabha, the precise course of is nuanced. In this voting system, MLAs play a vital function, and their voting mechanism is way from simple. Unlike a direct vote for every seat, MLAs are required to rank a number of candidates based mostly on desire.
The candidate who secures a qualifying variety of first desire votes is elected, and the remaining votes are transferred with diminished worth to subsequent selections. This intricate system compels MLAs to increase their help to candidates throughout social gathering strains. The victory threshold is set by the mix of state Assembly energy and the variety of MPs representing the state within the Rajya Sabha.
RS Polls: Formula to win
In order to win, a candidate should safe a selected variety of votes, generally known as the quota or desire vote. The method for this calculation is easy when it entails filling a single seat: [Total number of votes / (Number of Rajya Sabha seats + 1)] + 1.
However, the method undergoes modification in situations the place a couple of seat must be stuffed. In such circumstances, the full variety of votes required for a candidate could be expressed as [(Number of votes x 100) / (Vacancies + 1)] + 1.
This adjustment accommodates the intricacies of a number of seat allocations, making certain a good and exact electoral course of.
Candidates In Himachal, Karnataka, UP
In Himachal Pradesh, the BJP has compelled a contest by fielding Harsh Mahajan in opposition to Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi for the only seat regardless of not having sufficient MLAs to win.
In Karnataka, 5 candidates are contesting for the 4 seats. The Congress has fielded Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrasekhar, whereas Narayansa Bandage is the BJP candidate. JD(S) chief and former Rajya Sabha member D Kupendra Reddy can also be within the fray.
Uttar Pradesh will see 11 candidates vying for 10 seats. The BJP has fielded eight candidates – former Union minister R P N Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, state social gathering common secretary Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant, social gathering spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, former Agra mayor Naveen Jain and native industrialist and former SP chief Sanjay Seth who joined the BJP in 2019.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) has renominated Jaya Bachchan and likewise introduced the candidature of former MP Ramjilal Suman and retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan.
41 Rajya Members Elected Already Without Polls
Bihar: JD(U)’s Sanjay Kumar Jha, BJP’s Dharmshila Gupta and Bhim Singh, Manoj Kumar Jha and Sanjay Yadav (each RJD) and Akhilesh Prasad Singh (Congress) have been declared winners.
Haryana: Former Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala was elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from the state.
Rajasthan: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, and BJP candidates Chunnilal Garasiya and Madan Rathore have been elected unopposed from Rajasthan.
Madhya Pradesh: Four candidates from BJP together with Union minister L Murugan, Valmiki Dham Ashram head Umesh Nath Maharaj, Kisan Morcha’s nationwide vice chairman Banshilal Gurjar, and Madhya Pradesh BJP’s girls wing president Maya Naroliya have been declared winners.
The lone nominee of Congress to be declared unopposed is MP social gathering unit treasurer Ashok Singh.
Maharashtra: All six candidates from Maharashtra within the fray for Rajya Sabha elections, together with Congress turncoat Ashok Chavan, have been on Tuesday declared elected unopposed. Among the six, the BJP had fielded three nominees together with Chavan, and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and NCP one every. The opposition Congress had fielded one nominee.
The BJP nominees declared elected unopposed embrace Chavan, former MLA Medha Kulkarni, and RSS employee Ajit Gopchade. The nominees of Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party are ex-Congress MP Milind Deora and Praful Patel, respectively. The Congress had nominated Dalit chief Chandrakant Handore, the lone candidate from the opposition.
Uttarakhand:Â Uttarakhand BJP chief Mahendra Bhatt was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha.
West Bengal: TMC’s Sushmita Dev, Sagarika Ghose, Mamata Thakur and Md Nadimul Haque and Samik Bhattacharya (BJP) have been declared winners from West Bengal.
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Gujarat: Nadda and the social gathering’s different nominees Jasvantsinh Parmar, Mayank Nayak and diamond baron Govindbhai Dholakia have been declared winners from Gujarat.
Odisha: Union minister Vaishnaw (BJP) and BJD’s Debashish Samantray and Subhashish Khuntia have been declared winners.
Andhra Pradesh: The YSR Congress gained all three seats – G Babu Rao, Y V Subba Reddy and M Raghunath Reddy.
Telangana: Congress bagged two seats – Renuka Chowdhury and Anil Kumar Yadav – and BRS one seat – V Ravichandra.
Chhattisgarh: BJP candidate Devendra Pratap Singh was elected unopposed.
(With PTI inputs)
