Biennial elections for 57 seats: Numbers game set to change in RS; BJP eyes gain

New Delhi, May 13: Number game is all set to change in the upper House of the Parliament, as 57 seats will going for biennial elections next month. Term of 53 MPs is ending on Friday (May13).

Ruling BJP is eyeing for major gain in the next month RS polls as it faces number crunch in the House. Reportedly, party is expected to gain 6 more seats, majority from Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Sources say, though BJP belives that it will improve its tally in RS, still party will be in minority in comparision to Congress which has 65 members in the upper house.

A BJP functionary was quoted as saying, "We will gain and Congress will lose some of its strength, but we will not become the largest party".

Out of the total 57 seats which will be polled next month, a majority of 14 each belong to BJP and Congress.

One seat each from Rajasthan and Karnataka vacated by Anand Sharma (Congress) and Vijay Mallya (Independent) respectively will also go for polls.

While six members belong to BSP, five are from JD(U), three each from SP, BJD and AIADMK.Two members each belong to DMK, NCP and TDP, while one member belongs to Shiv Sena. Mallya was an Independent member who resigned on May 5.

Among the prominent members retiring are Union ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Birender Singh, Suresh Prabhu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, former minister Jairam Ramesh, JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav and senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani.

State MLAs elect Rajya Sabha MPs through prefrencial voting process. Relative strength of a particular party in state Assembly decides how many MPs party can elect.

While a maximum of 11 members are retiring from Uttar Pradesh, six seats each will go for polls from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

From Bihar, five seats will go to polls, four each from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, three each from Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, two each are from Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.

One seat from Uttarakhand will also go for poll, the EC said. The notification for the polls will be issued on May 24, the EC said.

OneIndia News

(With inputs from IANS)