It will also hold a by-poll for a single seat in West Bengal. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has 116 MPs in Rajya Sabha is all set to gain a seat in the Upper House where it is already the single largest party. The Election Commission of India on Tuesday announced the schedule for biennial elections to fill 10 vacancies from Uttar Pradesh and one from Uttarakhand. All elections will be held on October 16.
The nine seats are currently held by Arun Singh, Geeta alias Chandraprabha, Neeraj Shekhar, Brijlal, BL Verma, Seema, and Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri, all from the BJP; Ram Gopal Yadav from the SP; and Ramji from the BSP. With elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled for next year all eyes are now on the candidates that the BJP will pick for the upper House. Given the importance of caste in the state, the party’s representation of various castes will be keenly scrutinised.
Of the 10 seats going to the polls on October 16, the BJP is expected to win 8 and the Samajwadi Party , 2 (a gain of one seat). The BJP is also comfortably placed to win the seats from Uttarakhand which will fall vacant after the completion of Naresh Bansal’s term on November 25 and West Bengal , which fell vacant on the resignation of TMC’s Rukmini Mallick in July. Nine seats in Uttar Pradesh will fall vacant when the terms of the incumbents end on November 25; a tenth, is already vacant, after the resignation of Dinesh Sharma on September 11, after he was appointed L-G, Andaman and Nicobar. His term too was to end on November 25.
A party leader speaking on condition of anonymity said it is likely that the ruling party will not repeat any of the retiring members.
