Rajya Sabha elections Live: Contest for seats in UP, 5 other states today; Arun Jaitley likely to secure position
For the 59 Rajya Sabha seats to be filled, 33 candidates from 10 states were declared elected unopposed on March 15. Seven union ministers including Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar were among them. Here are the live updates.
india Updated: Mar 23, 2018 08:58 IST
The stage is set for Rajya Sabha polls on Friday for the remaining 25 seats in six states, including Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP is virtually assured of 8 of the 10 seats amid suspense if it can snatch an extra seat in the light of the newfound bonhomie between former arch rivals SP and BSP.
For the 59 Rajya Sabha seats to be filled, 33 candidates from 10 states were declared elected unopposed on March 15. Seven union ministers including Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar were among them.
Besides UP where finance minister Arun Jaitley is in the fray and is certain to win, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana will also feature in the polls.
Counting of ballots will be taken up at 5 pm, an hour after the end of voting.
Here are the live updates:
9am: SP candidate Jaya Bachchan Ji and BSP candidate, (Bhim Rao Ambedkar) whom we are supporting, will win the Rajya Sabha elections. Considering BJP’s condition, I’d say that its own MLAs are annoyed and some of them may even end up siding with the opposition: Rajendra Chaudhary, SP
• Out of the 59 seats, 33 candidates will be elected unanimously from 10 states. Voting for the remaining 25 seats will be held in six states: Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
• How a RS member is elected -- RS members are elected through indirect voting by MLAs through the process of proportional representation. In other words, it means the number of Rajya Sabha MPs will depend of the size of the population of that state.