Elections for 58 seats of Rajya Sabha to be held on March 23: Will BJP have a cakewalk?

NEW DELHI: The elections for 58 crucial seats in Rajya Sabha will be held on March 23. The elections are being held to fill the vacancies arising out of the retirement of 58 members of the upper house next month. 

This time, the elections will be held to elect members from 16 states. Rajya Sabha has a total of 245 seats and any party or political bloc needs at least 126 seats for a majority in the Upper House. 

The Narendra Modi-led BJP, which is in power at the Centre, currently has 58 members - four more than the Congress.

The ruling party is expected to improve its tally as it rules 11 of the 16 states where Rajya Sabha elections will be held on Friday.

The voting for 58 seats of Rajya Sabha will be held between 9 am to 4 pm. Counting of votes for Rajya Sabha election will begin from 5 pm onwards on March 23, 2018 and results would be announced the same evening

Elected representatives of state legislatures will vote in elections to the Upper House.   

Members of state assemblies elect Rajya Sabha members by a process of indirect voting in what is called proportional representation with a single transferable vote.

Each voter ranks his preference, and if the first candidate on the list has enough votes to win or no chance of winning, the vote is transferred to the next choice and so on. 

Rajya Sabha members are elected for a six-year term. One-third of the members of the upper house of parliament retire after every two years.

Here are the number of vacant seats elections for which will be held in 16 states

Uttar Pradesh: 10 seats
Maharashtra: 6 seats
Bihar: 6 seats
West Bengal: 5 seats
Madhya Pradesh: 5 seats
Gujarat: 4 seats
Karnataka: 4 seats
Andhra Pradesh: 3 seats
Telangana: 3 seats
Rajasthan: 3 seats
Odisha: 3 seats
Jharkhand: 2 seats
Chhattisgarh: 1 seat
Haryana: 1 seat
Himachal Pradesh: 1 seat
Uttarakhand: 1 seat

For the 58 Rajya Sabha seats to be filled, 33 candidates from 10 states have been unanimously elected. Voting for the remaining 25 seats will be held in six states. They are Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.