Rajya Sabha polls in 12 seats on October 16
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The polls will be held for 10 seats from Uttar Pradesh and one from Uttarakhand, where the terms of the sitting members in the Upper House end on November 25. A bypoll will be held for one Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal. File | Photo Credit: ANI
The Election Commission on Tuesday announced elections for 12 Rajya Sabha seats across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal, to be held on October 16.
The polls will be held for 10 seats from Uttar Pradesh and one from Uttarakhand, where the terms of the sitting members in the Upper House end on November 25. A bypoll will be held for one Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal.
The notification for these polls will be issued on September 29, and nominations can be filed till October 6.
The Bahujan Samaj Party is set to lose its sole Rajya Sabha seat as Ramji Gautam completes his term, leaving the party without any representation in Parliament for the first time since its debut victory in a Lok Sabha seat in 1989.
Others retiring from Uttar Pradesh include Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Arun Singh, Geeta Shakya, Neeraj Shekhar, Brijlal, B.L. Verma, Seema Dwivedi, and Hardeep Singh Puri, and Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav.
The seat vacated by former U.P. Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who was appointed as Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, will also go to the polls.
The Rajya Sabha elections come ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls due next year.
In Uttarakhand, BJP MP Naresh Bansal’s term is coming to an end. The West Bengal bypoll was necessitated by the resignation of former Trinamool Congress MP Rukmini Mallik, an actor popularly known as Koel Mallick, on July 16, just three months after she was sworn in to the Rajya Sabha. The winner of the bypoll will serve the remainder of the term until April 2, 2032.
These elections will likely result in only minor changes in the party composition of the Rajya Sabha, with only the BJP set to gain one seat with a win in West Bengal at the cost of the Mamata All India Trinamool Congress. The BJP is also comfortably placed to retain the Uttarakhand seat.
The Opposition INDIA bloc could also increase its numbers by one, if the Samajwadi Party or one of its allies wins the seat being vacated by the BSP.
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