The Rajya Sabha election 2022 will decide the electoral fate of prominent candidates such as Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Congress candidates Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, and Mukul Wasnik, and Shiv Sena's ubiquitous face Sanjay Raut. All these leaders are expected to win without a hiccup.
Biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently and all 41 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand have been declared elected unopposed last Friday.
However, elections will be held for 16 seats of Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka on Friday as the number of candidates exceeds the seats going to the polls.
Rajya Sabha polls 2022
RAJASTHAN
The Congress currently has 108 legislators in the 200-member state Assembly and needs 123 votes to win three seats. the ruling Congress party has fielded three candidates Randeep Singh Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik, and Pramod Tiwari. The Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) with two MLAs has extended support to it.
The Congress is also claiming the support of 13 Independents and one Rashtriya Lok Dal MLA, who is currently a state minister.
On the other hand, the BJP has 71 MLAs. After the victory of its party candidate, the BJP will be left with 30 surplus votes, which will go to Subhash Chandra.
Three MLAs of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) have also extended support to Chandra, who needs eight more seats to win the elections.
There are 10 seats of the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan and currently, the BJP has seven and the Congress three MPs.
The elections for the four seats are taking place as BJP's Omprakash Mathur, K J Alphons, Ramkumar Verma and Harshardhan Singh Dungarpur are going to complete their term on July 4.
The other three Rajya Sabha MPs of the BJP are Kirodi Lal, Bhupendra Yadav (Union minister), and Rajendra Gehlot.
The Congress Rajya Sabha MPs from Rajasthan are former PM Manmohan Singh, party general secretary K C Venugopal, and Neeraj Dangi.
MAHARASHTRA
The Rajya Sabha polling will be held for six seats today.
After more than two decades, the state will witness a contest in the Rajya Sabha polls as there are seven candidates in the fray for six seats. The ruling MVA allies - Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress - have lodged their MLAs in different hotels and resorts in Mumbai. They will leave for the state assembly just before the polling begins.
Union minister Piyush Goyal, Anil Bonde, Dhananjay Mahadik (BJP), Praful Patel (NCP), Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar (Shiv Sena), and Imran Pratapgarhi (Congress) are in the fray for the six seats.
Shiv Sena has 55 MLAs, NCP 53, Congress 44 , BJP 106, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) three, Samajwadi party, AIMIM and Prahar Janshakti party two each, MNS, CPI(M), PWP, Swabhimani Party, Rashtriya Samaj Paksh, Jansurajya Shakti party, Krantikari Shetkari Party one each, and there are 13 independent legislators. Both the MVA partners and BJP are banking on the 25 additional votes of smaller parties and independents to see their candidates emerge victorious for the sixth seat.
The 288-member Maharashtra Assembly is the electoral college for the elections but the total votes have come down to 285 because of a vacancy due to the death of Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke and a special court's rejection of the pleas of NCP's Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh, in jail for alleged involvement in money laundering cases, seeking a day's bail to vote.
HARYANA
In Haryana, the voting will take place for two seats. In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the BJP has 40 MLAs while the Congress has 31. The Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) Jannayak Janata Party. There are seven Independents.
While the BJP, with 40 MLAs in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, has nine more than the 31 first preference votes required for a straight win, the contest has become keen for the second seat with the entry of media baron Kartikeya Sharma, an Independent. He has the backing of the BJP-JJP combine, most of the Independents, and Gopal Kanda, the lone MLA of the Haryana Lokhit Party.
The BJP has fielded former Minister Krishan Lal Panwar, while Ajay Maken, a former Union minister, is the Congress nominee.
The Congress has 31 members in the state Assembly, just enough to help its candidate win a seat. Its prospects could be in jeopardy in case of cross-voting. Kuldeep Bishnoi, the younger son of former Haryana chief minister, the late Bhajan Lal, is reportedly miffed with the party as he did not find any position in the new state Congress unit when it was reconstituted in April.
KARNATAKA
In Karnataka, the main opposition Congress and JD(S) of former prime minister H D Deve Gowda continued to wrangle over the fourth seat they could win if one of them supported the other.
Altogether six candidates are in the fray for four seats, necessitating a keen contest for the fourth. Despite not having the number, the BJP, Congress, and JD(S) have fielded candidates for the seat, forcing an election. A candidate needs 45 first preference votes for a facile win, and based on its strength in the Legislative Assembly, the BJP can win two seats and the Congress one.
The six candidates in the fray are Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh, and outgoing MLC Lehar Singh Siroya of the BJP, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh and state general secretary Mansoor Ali Khan from the Congress, and former MP D Kupendra Reddy from the JD(S).
After getting two Rajya Sabha candidates (Sitharaman and Jaggesh) elected on their own strength, the BJP will be left with an additional 32 votes. The Congress, after seeing former Union minister Jairam Ramesh through, will be left with 24 votes. The JD(S) has only 32 MLAs, which is not enough to win a seat.
