Who Has the Numbers in the Upcoming Rajya Sabha Elections? See Below

The Election Commission of India on Friday announced polls for 24 Rajya Sabha seats are to be held on June 18. Big names like Congress president Mallikarjuna Kharge, former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh are retiring from the house.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s two minority faces, Ravneet Singh ‘Bittu’ and George Kurian, will also be retiring from the house next month.

The 24 seats are spread across Andhra Pradesh (4), Gujarat (4), Karnataka (4), Madhya Pradesh (3), Rajasthan (3), Jharkhand (2) and one vacancy each in the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Mizoram.

The Electoral Arithmetic

The ruling NDA will likely sweep all four seats in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat due to their strength in the respective state assemblies. The NDA – comprising the TDP, Jan Sena and BJP – dominate the Andhra Pradesh Assembly holding 164 of the 175 seats.

The YSRCP which was routed in the 2024 assembly elections will see three of its MPs retiring without the possibility of winning these seats back.

Gujarat will no longer have any representative from an opposition party after its lone MP will retire from the Rajya Sabha. The BJP bastion state has 156 out of 182 members from the ruling party.

In Karnataka the Congress is likely to gain one seat from the NDA and win three out of the four Rajya Sabha seats up for grabs.

The Battle in MP, Rajasthan and Jharkhand

The arithmetic in some of the states are not as simple as the others. In Madhya Pradesh the BJP should cruise to victory on two seats. The party remains just nine MLAs short of having enough votes to win the third Rajya Sabha seat. Through political manoeuvring the party might be able to ensure a sweep in MP as well.     

In Rajasthan, the situation is slightly clearer. The BJP should win two of the three seats up for grabs while the Congress should get the other. The BJP will have around 34 MLAs to spare after electing its two MPs but any sort of manoeuvring here would be a long shot from the ruling party.

In Jharkhand the opposition are expected to win both seats for which elections are to be held. It will reduce the number of BJP Rajya Sabha MPs from three to two.