New Delhi: Voting for 11 seats in Bihar, Haryana, and Odisha for the Rajya Sabha is underway. For 26 seats from Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, West Bengal and Telengana, the candidates have already secured victory unopposed.
In Maharashtra, all seven candidates, including six of the ruling Mahayuti and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, are set to be elected unopposed. From the Mahayuti, Vinod Tawde, Ramrao Wadkute and Maya Ivnate of the BJP, Ramdas Athavale of RPI(A), Shiv Sena’s Jyoti Waghmare and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s son Parth Pawar of the NCP are set to be elected unopposed.
In Tamil Nadu, DMK’s Tiruchi Siva and J Constantine Ravindran, Congress’s M Christopher Tilak, DMDK’s LK Sudeesh, AIADMK’s M Thambidurai, and PMK’s Anbumani Ramadoss are set to be elected unopposed
In Himachal Pradesh, Congress’s Anurag Sharma is the only candidate and is set to be elected unopposed.
In Telangana, Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Vem Narender Reddy were elected unopposed.
In West Bengal, TMC’s Babul Supriyo, former state DGP Rajeev Kumar, senior Supreme Court advocate Menaka Guruswamy, actor Koel Mallick and BJP’s former state unit president Rahul Sinha were elected unopposed. But the party had staged walkout while voting was underway to protest against the reshuffling of the top bureaucrats after polls were announced in the state.
In Chhattisgarh, Phulo Devi Netam from Congress and BJP’s Laxmi Verma were elected unopposed, while in Assam, Jogen Mohan and Terash Gowala from BJP, Pramod Boro from ally UPPL were elected unopposed.
Polling for four Rajya Sabha seats in Odisha is underway in the Assembly complex on Monday. The opposition BJD and Congress have accused the ruling BJP of indulging in “horse trading”.
In Bihar, the NDA is looking forward to a clean sweep on all five seats with three key leaders — Nitish Kumar (JD-U), Nitin Nabin (BJP) and Upendra Kushwaha (RLM) — in the fray. The other two NDA candidates are Union minister Ram Nath Thakur of the JD(U), who is aiming at a hat-trick and BJP state general secretary Shivesh Kumar.
The RJD, meanwhile, is depending heavily on the support of All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), which has five MLAs.
Two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana would fall vacant as BJP members Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra are set to complete their terms on April 9.
BJP’s Sanjay Bhatia, Congress’s Karamvir Singh Boudh and BJP-backed Independent candidate Satish Nandal are in the fray.
