The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced that the biennial Rajya Sabha elections are scheduled to take place on February 27, 2024 on a total of 56 seats across 15 states, the polling will be held between 9 am and 4 pm.
The nomination process is set to commence on February 8 with the issuance of notifications. The last date for filing nomination papers is February 15. ECI said that 50 members of these Rajya Sabha seats will retire on April 2, while as many as six will do so on April 3.
The vacancies include seats currently held by prominent figures such as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, BJP president J P Nadda and nine Union ministers including Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav and Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
The states where the Rajya Sabha polls will be conducted include Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, and Rajasthan.
BJP president J P Nadda will need to seek renomination from a state outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh, where the Congress is in power.
Uttar Pradesh is expected to witness the highest number of vacancies, with 10 seats up for grabs, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar with six each. Other states with varying seat numbers include Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Gujarat, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh.
Photo: The Hindu
In Uttar Pradesh, BJP members Anil Agrawal, Ashok Bajpai, Anil Jain, Kanta Kardam, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, GVL Narasimha Rao, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sudhanshu Trivedi and Harnath Singh Yadav, and Samajwadi Party member Jaya Bachchan are retiring.
In Maharashtra, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, MSME Minister Narayan Rane, former Union minister Prakash Javadekar, Congress member Kumar Ketkar, NCP member Vandana Chavan and Shiv Sena (UBT) member Anil Desai are retiring.
In Gujarat, BJD members Prashanta Nanda and Amar Patnaik (Odisha), BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni (Uttarakhand) and Fisheries Minister Parshottam Rupala, and Congress members Naranbhai Rathwa and Amee Yagnik.
In Karnataka, four Rajya Sabha members including Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP and L Hanumanthaiah, G C Chandrashekhar and Syed Nasir Hussain of the Congress.
In Telangana, 3 are retiring. BRS' Joginipally Santosh Kumar Ravichandra Vaddiraju and B Lingaiah Yadav are the retiring members from Telangana. The Congress, which is ruling in Telangana, can hope to send at least two of its nominees to Rajya Sabha from the state.
In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress members Abir Ranjan Biswas, Subhasish Chakraborty, Mohammed Nadimul Haque and Santanu Sen, and Congress member Abhishek Manu Singhvi are retiring from the Upper House of Parliament.
In Bihar, RJD members Manoj Kumar Jha and Ahmad Ashfaque Karim, JD(U) members Aneel Prasad Hegde and Bashistha Narain Singh, BJP member Sushil Kumar Modi and Congress member Akhilesh Prasad Singh are completing their tenures in the Rajya Sabha.
In Andhra Pradesh, TDP member Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar, BJP member C M Ramesh and YSRCP member Prabhakar Reddy Vemireddy are retiring from Rajya Sabha.
BJP members Saroj Pandey and D P Vats are retiring from Chhattisgarh and Haryana respectively.
Additionally, four nominated members are set to retire in July, including Mahesh Jethmalani, Sonal Mansingh, Ram Shakal, and Rakesh Sinha of the BJP. Two nominated seats will also be vacant.
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