Rajya Sabha Election 2022: Voting for 13 Seats Across Six States Today; BJP Confident to Win All Seats in 3 NE States

Rajya Sabha Election 2022: The BJP is confident that it will win all the four Rajya Sabha seats in the March 31 biennial elections for the upper house seats in three northeastern states.

Rajya Sabha Election 2022: Elections for 13 Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant in April will be held on Thursday, March 31. Elections will be held for 13 seats across six states — Assam (2), Himachal (1), Kerala (3), Nagaland (1), Tripura (1), and Punjab (5). The counting of votes will be on March 31 as well.

Rajya Sabha members are elected by a single transferable vote by state legislatures on the principle of proportional representation. Prominent among the members who are retiring are Antony (Kerala), Sharma (Himachal Pradesh), Pratap Singh Bajwa and Naresh Gujral (Punjab). While former defence minister Antony, Sharma and Bajwa are from the Congress, Gujral is from the Shiromani Akali Dal.

The BJP is confident that it will win all the four Rajya Sabha seats in the March 31 biennial elections for the upper house seats in three northeastern states — Assam, Nagaland and Tripura.

The two seats in Assam are currently held by Ripun Bora and Ranee Narah of the Congress, one seat in Tripura by CPI-M’s Jharna Das (Baidya) and lone seat in Nagaland by K.G. Kenye of Naga People’s Front (NPF). In Assam, the ruling BJP has nominated Pabitra Margherita as its candidate for one Rajya Sabha seat while its ally United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) has fielded Rwngwra Narzary for the second seat.

In Nagaland, the BJP has put up the party’s Mahila Morcha president S. Phangnon Konyak as its candidate. The BJP with 12 MLAs is an ally of Nagaland’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Government in which NPF with 25 MLAs is a major ally and 21 members Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) is the dominant party of the UDA, which is an all party alliance governing the India’s first opposition less state.

In Tripura, BJP candidate Prof. (Dr.) Manik Saha’s win is almost certain as the ruling party along with its ally — Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura — has the strength of 41 in the 60 member house while the opposition CPI-M has 15 MLAs after the death of the party legislator and former assembly Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath.

Five seats are to be filled in this Punjab poll. Out of the five seats to be filled from Punjab, three are to be filled by holding one election and the other two through another election as these seats belong to two different biennial cycles.