MEPs will vote to elect candidates for the Upper House of Parliament. (FILE)
New Delhi:
The 24-seat Rajya Sabha elections – most of them suspended since March by the coronavirus pandemic – will finally take place today. Preparations for the elections, in which the seats of 10 states are at stake, were marked by a resurgence of the appeal policy, resignations, camp changes and allegations of corruption. In two states, Gujarat and Rajasthan, Congress has taken its herd away, accusing the BJP of attempts to buy its deputies. The drama was more elaborate in Gujarat, where the BJP had fought a pitched battle to seize the seat of Congressman Ahmed Patel three years ago, and narrowly missed it. A comfortable majority in the Rajya Sabha is crucial for the BJP to manage invoices through the upper room. The NDA needs about 30 more seats to have a majority in the upper house.
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The elections will be held in four seats each from Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, three each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two from Jharkhand and one each from the northeastern states of Meghalaya and Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Voting will start at 9 a.m. The hardest fight concerns more than one seat in Gujarat, one in Rajasthan and one in Madhya Pradesh.
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The Election Commission has made detailed arrangements for voting for the pandemic. Each Member will be examined for body temperature and will have to comply with safety measures such as face masks and social distancing. Lawmakers with fever or other symptoms will be kept in a separate waiting room.
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Currently, the NDA has 91 of the 245 Rajya Sabha seats, the UPA has 61. The other opposition and the non-aligned parties together have 68 seats. The main candidates in today’s election are Shakti Singh Gohil and Bharat Singh Solanki from Gujarat, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh from Madhya Pradesh and KC Venugopal from Rajasthan.
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The most intense policy took place in Gujarat, where eight deputies have resigned from Congress since March. According to figures, of the four state seats, the BJP has three. With its current strength, Congress can only be assured of one seat instead of two, which it could have ordered earlier. To win in Gujarat, a candidate needs 34 votes.
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Congress has 65 deputies in Gujarat, most of whom have been dispatched to three stations – one in Rajasthan and two in Ahmedabad – in recent weeks. The BJP has 103 members in an assembly of 182 members, where a candidate needs 34 votes of first preference to win.
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In Madhya Pradesh – where Jyotiraditya Scindia joined the BJP in March with 22 deputies, which pushed Congress out of power – former chief minister Kamal Nath is trying to bring back some of them. Of the three state seats, the BJP has two seats and that of Congress.
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The 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly now has 206 active members after the resignation of Jyotiraditya Scindia loyalists and the death of two members. The BJP has 107 members, Congress 92 in the National Assembly and a candidate needs 51 votes to win a Rajya Sabha seat.
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In Rajasthan, where three seats are at stake, the BJP can obtain one seat and Congress two, based on their number. But the opposition party presented an additional candidate, pushing the Congress to take its deputies in various stations of the state. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that each of his deputies was offered between 25 and 30 crores rupees.
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Before Rajya Sabha’s elections, Congress introduced a censure motion against the BJP-led government in Manipur, whose nine MPs rebelled. The figures are expected to affect the outcome of the single seat of the state’s upper house.
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In February, the Election Commission announced elections to fill 55 seats in 17 states. In March, 37 candidates in 10 states were elected without opposition. The elections for the remaining seats, scheduled for March 26, have been postponed because the process would have involved huge rallies. On March 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the national lockdown.
