The schedule of Rajya Sabha elections to 56 seats from 15 states of India has been released by the Election Commission on Monday.
The election body said that the elections for the membership of the Upper House of the Parliament will be conducted on 27 February.
Rajya Sabha: Current strength of MPs
Central Ministers eye re-nomination
Sixty eight Rajya Sabha members including, nine Union Ministers are completing their term this year triggering a race of sorts among political leaders of political parties concluding there six-year term.
Of the 68 vacancies, elections have already been called for three seats in Delhi, where AAP leaders Sanjay Singh, Narayan Das Gupta and Sushil Kumar Gupta will complete their terms on January 27. Elections have also been held for the only Rajya Sabha seat in Sikkim. SDF member Hishe Lachungpa will retire on February 23.
Retiring Members in Rajya Sabha
The retiring members include Manmohan Singh and Bhupendra Yadav (Rajasthan), Ashwini Vaishnav, BJD members Prashant Nanda and Amar Patnaik (Odisha), BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni (Uttarakhand), Mansukh Mandaviya and Fisheries Minister Parshottam Rupala, and Congress members. Naranbhai Rathwa and others. Ami Yagnik from Gujarat.
Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, MSME Minister Narayan Rane, former Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, Congress member Kumar Ketkar, NCP member Vandana Chavan and Shiv Sena (UBT) member Anil Desai are retiring from Maharashtra.
The Rajya Sabha elections will be keenly watched following the political restructuring in the state due to the split between NCP and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
From Madhya Pradesh, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L Murugan, BJP members Ajay Pratap Singh and Kailash Soni and Congress member Rajmani Patel are retiring from the Upper House of Parliament.
In Karnataka, the members retiring are BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Congress’s L Hanumanthaiya, GC Chandrasekhar and Syed Nasir Hussain.
BRS’s Joginipalli Santosh Kumar Ravichandran Vaddiraju and B Lingaiah Yadav are retired members from Telangana. The Congress, which is in power in Telangana, is expected to send at least two of its candidates to the Rajya Sabha from the state.
From West Bengal, Trinamool Congress members Abir Ranjan Biswas, Subhasish Chakraborty, Mohammad Nadimul Haque and Shantanu Sen and Congress member Abhishek Manu Singhvi are retiring from the Upper House of Parliament.
In Bihar, RJD members Manoj Kumar Jha and Ahmed Ashfaq Karim, JDU members Anil Prasad Hegde and Bashistha Narayan Singh, BJP member Sushil Kumar Modi and Congress member Akhilesh Prasad Singh are completing their terms in the Rajya Sabha.
BJP members Anil Aggarwal, Ashok Bajpai, Anil Jain, Kanta Kardam, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, GVL Narasimha Rao, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sudhanshu Trivedi and Harnath Singh Yadav and Samajwadi Party member from Uttar Pradesh Jaya Bachchan are retiring.
From Andhra Pradesh, TDP member Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar, BJP member CM Ramesh and YSRCP member Prabhakar Reddy Vemireddy are retiring from the Rajya Sabha.
BJP members Saroj Pandey and DP Vats are retiring from Chhattisgarh and Haryana respectively.
In Jharkhand, BJP member Sameer Oraon and Congress member Dheeraj Prasad Sahu are retiring from the Upper House of Parliament in May.
In Kerala, CPI(M) member Elamaram Kareem, CPI member Binoy Viswam and KC(M) member Jose K Mani are retiring in July.
The nominated members who are set to retire in July include BJP’s Mahesh Jethmalani, Sonal Mansingh, Ram Shakal and Rakesh Sinha.
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