Seven states to go to polls today to elect Rajya Sabha members

Seven States will go to polls today to elect 27 Rajya Sabha members. These include 11 seats from Uttar Pradesh, four each from Karnataka and Rajasthan, three from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Haryana and Jharkhand and one from Uttarakhand.

Out of 57 Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant, voting will take place for only 27 seats today as 30 candidates were declared elected unopposed at the end of withdrawal of nominations on June 3. 

Prominent among them are Union Ministers - Suresh Prabhu and Piyush Goyal, eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani, Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharati and former JD(U) president Sharad Yadav.

Voting, which will begin at 9 AM, will



end at 4 PM. Counting of votes will be taken up at 5 this evening. Today's vote will decide the fate of senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Congress stalwarts Kapil Sibbal and Jairam Ramesh, among others. 

Stakes are high for both ruling BJP and opposition Congress as the later has already lost majority in Lok Sabha. Outcome of the polls will also decide realignment of political battlelines in the Rajya Sabha where crucial bills including Goods and Services Tax (GST) are to be taken up in the upcoming monsoon session despite opposition from Congress. Of the seats up for grabs, BJP and Congress hold 14 each, while the balance is with regional parties.