Election for two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana will be held on March 16 to choose successors to Kiran Chaudhary and Ramchandra Jangra, whose terms end in April. While both the BJP and Congress have fielded candidates and state arithmetic suggests each party should secure one seat, the surprise entry of Independent candidate Satish Nandal has injected uncertainty into what otherwise looked like a straightforward contest.
To win a Rajya Sabha seat from Haryana a candidate needs the votes of 31 MLAs. The 90-member Haryana assembly currently has 48 BJP MLAs, and the party also counts three Independents as its supporters. The Congress has 37 MLAs, while two seats belong to the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). On paper, that distribution implies one clear BJP victory and one for Congress, but past upsets warn against complacency.
The BJP has nominated Sanjay Bhatia, and the Congress candidate is Karmaveer Bauddh. The focus, however, is on Satish Nandal’s independent bid, which has revived memories of irregularities and cross-voting that decided earlier Rajya Sabha fights in the state.
In June 2016, although Congress and INLD together had significant numbers, the BJP’s Birendra Chaudhary won one seat and BJP-backed businessman Subhash Chandra prevailed as an Independent. Fourteen Congress votes were declared invalid after the use of wrong ink, and one INLD MLA voted for Subhash Chandra, altering the expected outcome. A similar upset occurred in June 2022 when Congress candidate Ajay Maken lost despite the party holding 31 MLAs; Independent Kartikeya Sharma, backed by the BJP and JJP, defeated him while BJP’s Krishan Lal Panwar also won a seat.
Against this backdrop, party factionalism within the Haryana Congress and the possibility of cross-voting make the contest fragile. According to reported support figures, Satish Nandal already has backing from 17 BJP leaders and three Independents and would require nine more votes to meet the 31-MLA threshold, a dynamic that could again reshape the result on March 16.
Original Source: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/independent-candidate-in-fray-rajya-sabha-polls-in-haryana-promises-to-be-a-cliffhanger-11174641#publisher=newsstand
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Publish Date: 2026-03-06 00:58:00
