RS Elections: Who’s likely win 15 seats in UP, HP and Karnataka Mediainsights.in

Among these 41 leaders were former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief JP Nadda, Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan. As per news agency PTI, the BJP won the highest number of 20 seats, followed by the Congress (6), Trinamool Congress (4), YSR Congress (3), RJD (2), BJD (2) and NCP, Shiv Sena, BRS and JD(U) one each.

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The Rajya Sabha biennial election for remaining 15 seats is scheduled on February 27.  The 15 seats are spread across three states — Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. Let’s check out what is the Rajya Sabha election formula and process, who are the candidates and how numbers stack up for 15 seats in these three states?

What’s the Rajya Sabha Election formula?

Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by MLAs through the proportional representation process with the single transferable vote (STV) system. Each MLA’s vote is counted only once.

The MLAs don’t vote for each seat. Instead, the MLAs have to list different candidates in order of their preference. If the MLAs qualified to vote choose a particular candidate as their first choice, he or she gets elected. The remaining votes go to the next candidates, but with a lesser value. So, MLAs also vote for candidates from other parties.

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The candidate that emerges as number one rank secures a first preference vote. So, a candidate needs a specific number of such first preference votes. This number depends on the strength of the state assembly and the number of MPs it sends to Rajya Sabha.

Thus to win, a candidate should get a required number of votes which is known as quota or preference vote. The formula is = [Total number of votes/(Number of Rajya Sabha seats + 1)] + 1.

And, the formula is different in case more than one seat needs to be filled. In that case, the total number of votes required for a candidate is = [(Number of votes x 100) / (Vacancies + 1)] + 1.

Here’s a look at what’s the party position on 15 seats across three states

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh will see 11 candidates vying for 10 seats. The Samajwadi Party (SP) has renominated three candidates — Jaya Bachchan, former MP Ramjilal Suman and retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan.

Meanwhile, the BJP forced the contest by fielding eight candidates instead of seven. Had the BJP not nominated its eighth candidate, election to the 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh would also have passed unopposed.

The BJP candidates include former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, state party general secretary Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant, party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, former Agra mayor Naveen Jain and local industrialist and former SP leader Sanjay Seth who joined the BJP in 2019.

In Uttar Pradesh, there are 403 assembly seats but the current strength of the assembly is 399. To win a Rajya Sabha seat, a candidate requires 37 first preference votes in UP. 

BJP: The BJP in Uttar Pradesh has 252 MLAs and the NDA has around 277 MLAs. 

SP: The Samajwadi Party (SP), the regional party has 108 MLAs in the assembly and with the support of the INDIA bloc, the numbers of MLAs in their favour may go to up to at least 110. 

Himachal Pradesh

In Himachal Pradesh, the BJP has forced a contest by fielding Harsh Mahajan against Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi for the single seat, despite not having enough MLAs to win.

The Himachal Pradesh Assembly has 68 members. This means a candidate needs 35 first preference votes to win.

BJP: The BJP has 25 MLAs in the Himachal Pradesh assembly.

Congress: The Congress has 40 MLAs in the Himachal Pradesh assembly. 

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Karnataka

In Karnataka, five candidates are contesting for the four seats. The Congress has fielded Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrasekhar, while Narayansa Bandage is the BJP candidate. JD(S) leader and former Rajya Sabha member D Kupendra Reddy is also in the fray.

There are a total of 224 members in the Karnataka Assembly. Each of the five candidates need 45 first preference votes to win.

BJP: The party fielded one candidate. The BJP has 66 MLAs in the assembly. 

JD(S): HD Kumaraswamy’s party has 19 MLAs in the assembly. With support of BJP MLAs, their tally may go up to 85. It has fielded one candidate.

Congress: The Congress has 135 MLAs in assembly. It has fielded three candidates. 

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Published: 22 Feb 2024, 06:01 AM IST