Voting in the crucial biennial elections for 25 seats in the Rajya Sabha is currently on in six states today. These elections are important as they can help the union government get more seats in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament. This will help the government consolidate their position in the house. Voting will be held till 4 PM and counting will be taken up an hour later.

All eyes are on the Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal elections as many leaders like Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi are contesting from these states respectively. Karnataka, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana will also feature in the polls.

One candidate each of the ruling BJP and opposition Congress will battle for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Chhattisgarh. Kerala will also see an election for a single seat. In Telangana, legislators will select among four for the three seats going to polls. In this state, the BJP are giving the elections a miss.

Five candidates are in the electoral arena in Karnataka for four seats. The state’s ruling Congress has fielded three nominees, BJP and JD(S) have fielded one candidate each. Elections will also be held for two seats in Jharkhand where three candidates are in the fray, including two of the state’s ruling BJP and one of the Congress.

UP votes

Voting for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh began today. To secure a seat to the Upper House from this state, a candidate needs 37 first preference votes. The BJP is expected to sweep this election.

The BJP and its allies have 324 seats in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the saffron party can easily bag eight of the 10 seats and will still be left with 28 surplus votes as the the four-MLA strong Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) has decided to go with the ruling party. “There can be some contest on the ninth seat,” a senior UP BJP leader said.

The Samajwadi Party, which has fielded Jaya Bachchan, and the BSP, which nominated Bhimrao Ambedkar, appeared confident of winning one each of the remaining two seats.BJP candidates in the fray from Uttar Pradesh are Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Ashok Bajpai, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sakal Deep Rajbhar, Kanta Kardam, Anil Jain, Harnath Singh Yadav, G V L Narasimha Rao and Anil Kumar Agarwal.

The Apna Dal (Sonelal), with nine MLAs, has also decided to vote for the BJP nominees. “We are standing with the BJP. We held a meeting of our MLAs and it was decided that we will strongly support the BJP,” national president of Apna Dal (S) Ashish Patel had told PTI . The declaration of support from the Apna Dal (S) came days after SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, a Cabinet minister in state government, declared his party’s support for the BJP candidates.

The country’s most populous state sends 31 MPs to the 245-member Rajya Sabha, and the BJP, which won a massive victory in the 2017 Assembly elections, is yet to get a lion’s share of these.

Voting in West Bengal

Voting for the five Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal is underway in the Assembly here, with six candidates, including Congress nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi, in the fray. A candidate requires 49 votes to win a Rajya Sabha seat from the state. Polling started at 9 AM.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has fielded four candidates—Nadimul Haque, who was renominated, Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Santunu Sen—has announced its support to Congress’ Singhvi for the fifth seat.

Senior CPI(M) leader Rabin Deb is contesting as the Left Front candidate for the fifth seat.

The Congress has 42 MLAs in the 295-member West Bengal Legislative Assembly while the Left Front had 32 legislators, but two of them joined the TMC.

Election to the five Rajya Sabha seats from the state was necessitated as the terms of Kunal Ghosh, Bibek Gupta and Nadimul Haque of the TMC and Tapan Sen of CPI(M) will end on April 2. Mukul Roy, who quit the TMC and joined the BJP last year, has already resigned from the Rajya Sabha.

Voting in Kerala

Voting for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Kerala is underway. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan being among the early voters. M P Veerendra Kumar, the state president of the Janata Dal (U) Sharad Yadav faction, is the candidate supported by ruling CPI(M)-led LDF, while B Babu Prasad is the UDF candidate.

In the 140-member Assembly, the LDF has 90 MLAs while the UDF has 41 legislators.  Kerala Congress (M), which has six MLAs will abstain from voting. O Rajagopal, the lone BJP MLA in the state, will keep away from exercising his franchise.

Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ramesh Chennithala, former chief minister, Oommen Chandy, and state ministers were among those who voted.

The election is being held after the seat fell vacant when Veerendra Kumar resigned from the Upper House of Parliament as a mark of protest following JD(U) leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar joining hands with BJP-led NDA

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