Rajya Sabha Election: Voting for 16 seats in 4 states begins, close contest on cards - 10 points

New Delhi: A week after 41 candidates were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha, polling for 16 seats in the Upper House is taking place today (June 10). The polling began from 9 am and will continue till 4 pm in the Assembly building. The counting will start from 5 pm. Elections are being held for 16 seats across four states - Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana. Notably, all 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed last week after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.

Here are some key updates from the Rajya Sabha elections:

1) Two union ministers are among Rajya Sabha candidates today - Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman from Karnataka and Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra.

2) The Election Commission of India (ECI) has said that the whole process will be videographed, adding that those lodged in jail can vote if they get parole. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said, "There are elections in four states on Friday and the whole process will be videographed for which we have appointed observers." When asked about legislators lodged in jails, he said, "Those in jail will have to apply for parole and if they get parole, they can vote. Those in preventive detention can also vote."

3) Of the 16 seats, polling will happen in six Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra. On Thursday (June 9), Devendra Fadnavis held a meeting in Mumbai with the MLAs of his party, where he advised them to ensure that their votes do not turn invalid due to some mistake. 

4) After more than two decades, Maharashtra will witness a contest in the Rajya Sabha polls as there are seven candidates in the fray for six seats. Union minister Piyush Goyal, Anil Bonde, Dhananjay Mahadik (BJP), Praful Patel (NCP), Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar (Shiv Sena) and Imran Pratapgarhi (Congress) are in the fray for the six seats of the Upper House of Parliament. The contest is for the sixth seat - between BJP's Mahadik and Sena's Pawar.

5) In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the BJP has 40 MLAs, while the Congress has 31, JJP 10, Indian National Lok Dal and Haryana Lokhit Party one each and seven are Independents.

6) Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Thursday exuded confidence that the Congress' candidate Ajay Maken will win the Rajya Sabha election from Haryana. "We are confident. We have the numbers with us. Our candidate Ajay Maken will definitely win," Baghel said. 

7) The ruling BJP has fielded Krishan Lal Panwar for one of the two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana. With the entry of a third candidate, Kartikeya Sharma, as an Independent, the contest has turned interesting. Given its strength in the Assembly, the BJP is set to win one seat.

8) In Rajasthan, fearing poaching of legislators, the state government on Thursday ordered the suspension of mobile internet services in the Amer area of Jaipur district for 12 hours till 9 am on Friday, where Congress MLAs are staying after they returned from Udaipur. However, the voice calls and broadband services in the area have not been suspended, according to a notification. The Congress currently has 108 legislators in the 200-member state Assembly and needs 123 votes to win three seats.

9) In Karnataka, despite not having the adequate number of votes to win the fourth seat from the state Assembly, all the three political parties - BJP, Congress and JD(S) - have fielded candidates for the seat, forcing an election. The six candidates in the fray for Rajya Sabha polls are - Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh and outgoing MLC Lehar Singh Siroya from the BJP, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh and state general secretary Mansoor Ali Khan from the Congress, and former MP D Kupendra Reddy from the JD(S).

10) A day ahead of the polling, former state chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy urged the Congress to give its second preferential votes to JDS, if it really wanted to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party.