Haryana gears up for Rajya Sabha election

Haryana is gearing up for Rajya Sabha polls for three vacant seats scheduled on March 26.

Of the three seats, two Rajya Sabha seats are vacant due to the resignation of BJP's Ram Kumar Kashyap and Congress leader Kumari Selja's term expiry on April 9. The six-year term for the two seats will begin from April 10 this year.

Whereas, the third seat has remained vacant following the resignation of former Union minister Birender Singh. Singh's membership is due to end on August 1, 2022. Therefore, a by-election is being held on this seat. Two separate notifications have been issued for both these elections.

A candidate needs the support of 46 MLAs to win the election.

Haryana Assembly has 90 MLAs. While the BJP has 40 legislators, the Congress has 31 MLAs.

BJP has the support of 10 JJP MLAs and six of the seven independent MLAs in the state Assembly.

Since the Congress has only 31 MLAs, so it will have to muster 15 more MLAs for the by-election seat, which seems almost impossible. Therefore, only BJP-JJP alliance candidate will be nominated for the seat going for bypoll.

It will be interesting to see as to whom the independent MLA Balraj Kundu, INLD MLA Abhay Chautala and Gopal Kanda vote for in the upcoming election.

As far as the two seats of Rajya Sabha are concerned, then the formula for determining minimum quota to win an election under such circumstances is different, according to the existing legal provisions.

As per this formula, a minimum of 3001 votes are required to win a regular seat. The value of one vote of each MLA is 100 so a Rajya Sabha seat can be won with a minimum of 31 MLAs.

Congress has 31 MLAs. It can also win the Rajya Sabha seat, provided that the MLAs don't go for cross voting and elect their party candidate only.

The last day for filing nominations is Friday. The BJP-JJP alliance has fielded two candidates for the two Rajya Sabha seats. In such a situation, the possibility of cross voting cannot be ruled out.

When the Haryana Assembly voted for two Rajya Sabha seats in June 2016, the votes of more than a dozen Congress MLAs were declared invalid for using wrong ink during the vote. The BJP-backed independent candidate Subhash Chandra had won the election. IANS