Rajya Sabha elections for 58 seats on March 30

NEW DELHI, Mar 4: The Election Commission in Mar 3 announced the schedule for biennial polls to 58 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states whose representatives complete their term next month.

Announcing the schedule for filling up vacancies in the Rajya Sabha, the EC said the notifications would be issued on March 12.

The last date for filing of nominations is March 19 while that for withdrawal is March 22. Polling would be held on March 30, the poll body said.

The tenure of 58 members from the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Rajasthan is expiring in the month of April.

Biennial elections to the Council of States from Bihar shall also be held on the same date.

Prominent members whose term is due to expire are Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley (Gujarat), Congress' Raashid Alvi (Andhra Pradesh), RJD's Rajniti Prasad (Bihar), BJP's Ravishankar Prasad (Bihar), BJP's Hema Malini (Karnataka) and Rajya Sabha deputy chairman K Rahman Khan of Congress from Karnataka.

Besides, Manohar Joshi of Shiv Sena and science and technology minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and MoS parliamentary affairs Rajeev Shukla, all from Maharashtra, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi from Rajasthan, Kalraj Mishra of BJP, Vinay Katiyar of BJP and Naresh Chandra Aggarwal of BSP, all from Uttar Pradesh and Union minister Mukul Roy of All India Trinamool Congress from West Bengal also complete their tenure.

PTI