Rajya Sabha Elections: The Rajya Sabha biennial election for the 15 seats across 3 states is scheduled to start at 9 AM on Tuesday. Notably, these 15 seats are spread across three states such as Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. While 50 members will retire on April 2, six will retire on April 3.
It is worth mentioning that Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief JP Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha last week, while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on Tuesday (February 27).
It is interesting to note that three seats in two Congress-ruled states and one in Uttar Pradesh are expected to witness a fiery battle in the Rajya Sabha polls on Tuesday. Moreover, there are indications of potential cross-voting by Opposition MLAs, prompting the Congress and Samajwadi Party to monitor the situation closely.
Ahead of polls in Karnataka, the Congress MLAs have been taken to a safe house to avoid external influences. In the meantime, the Congress in Himachal Pradesh has issued a whip to its MLAs for the election to its exclusive Rajya Sabha seat, drawing criticism from the BJP.
In another development, nearly eight MLAs of the Samajwadi Party did not attend a meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday, a day before the voting for the Rajya Sabha elections.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections. However, chief whip of the party in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly Manoj Pandey and seven other MLAs — Mukesh Verma, Maharaji Prajapati, Pooja Pal, Rakesh Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi, Rakesh Pratap Singh and Abhay Singh did not attend the meeting.
Speaking to PTI, SP’s national spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary admitted that eight MLAs did not attend the dinner and meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav. However, he did not name the MLAs.
On a question whether Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) leader Pallavi Patel, who is an SP MLA, attended the meeting, Chaudhary said that though she was not in the meeting, she had a separate meeting with Yadav. She also assured her support to the SP candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections, Chaudhary said.
