Twenty-six leaders were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from seven states, but contests remain unresolved in Bihar, Odisha and Haryana as voting is set to decide the remaining seats. Names confirmed unopposed include veteran NCP leader Sharad Pawar, Union Minister Ramdas Athawale, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Thambi Durai, Vinod Tawde and Babul Supriyo, while keen fights are under way in the three states noted for their razor‑thin arithmetic.
In Bihar, the victories of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Ramnath Thakur (JDU), along with Nitin Nabin and BJP’s Shivam Kumar, are viewed as all but certain. The fifth seat, however, is a straight contest between NDA’s Upendra Kushwaha and Mahagathbandhan’s A.D. Singh and can be decided only by the assembly vote. The Grand Alliance currently commands 35 MLAs and needs 41 votes to win the fifth berth.
All five AIMIM MLAs have declared support for the Rashtriya Janata Dal; the RJD’s candidate received that formal backing after Tejashwi Yadav attended an iftar hosted by AIMIM state president Akhtarul Iman. The alliance also includes one BSP MLA. The NDA insists Kushwaha will prevail, but he will require at least three MLAs from the Grand Alliance to cross over; his camp is reportedly eyeing six Congress MLAs and the lone BSP MLA for support.
In Odisha, the BJP and the Biju Janata Dal are each expected to win two Rajya Sabha seats, with state BJP chief Manmohan Samal, BJP MP Sujit Kumar and BJD’s Santrupt Mishra set to be elected unopposed. Two candidates remain in contention for a fourth seat. With a 147‑member assembly, roughly 30 votes are needed to secure a seat. The BJP’s 79 MLAs plus three independents give it 82 votes-enough for two winners and leaving a surplus of 22 votes-but a third BJP victory would require about eight additional votes.
The BJD’s 48 MLAs guarantee one seat; if the 14 Congress MLAs and the lone CPM MLA align with the BJD, their combined strength would reach 33-three more than the threshold-complicating BJP‑backed Dilip Ray’s path unless he secures support from opposition legislators, sources say.
Haryana presents a similar arithmetic tussle. Of 90 assembly seats, the BJP has 48, supplemented by two INLD MLAs and three independents to a working strength of 53. With 31 votes needed to elect a member, the BJP’s official candidate Sanjay Bhatia is expected to win, leaving 22 surplus votes. The Congress’s 37 MLAs should ensure Karamvir Boddh’s victory and leave the party with a surplus of six votes.
The entry of Satish Nandal, an independent backed by the BJP, has upset calculations in Haryana. Nandal would require nine votes to win, a tally that would be impossible without cross‑voting from Congress MLAs. In response, Congress shifted 31 MLAs to Himachal Pradesh; six senior MLAs-including Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Vinesh Phogat, Kuldeep Vats, Mohammad Ilyas, Paramvir Singh and Chander Mohan Bishnoi-did not make the trip and have communicated their reasons to the party high command.
As assembly voting approaches in Bihar, Odisha and Haryana, party strategists on both sides are scrambling for short‑term alliances and cross‑votes, leaving open the possibility of unexpected outcomes when ballots are counted.
Original Source: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/26-elected-to-rajya-sabha-unopposed-big-fight-in-three-states-11219790#publisher=newsstand
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Publish Date: 2026-03-16 00:59:00
