Rajya Sabha election: How Rajya Sabha members are elected?

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Rajya Sabha election: How Rajya Sabha members are elected?
Rajya Sabha election: How Rajya Sabha members are elected?

New Delhi : Recently, there was a poll for the selection of Rajya Sabha deputy chariman. The post was vacant since June this year following the retirement of PK Kurien. The BJP-led NDA's nominee is Harivansh Narayan Singh, a parliamentarian from Bihar. On the other hand, Congress has voted for its candidate, BK Hariprasad, MP from Karnataka. BJP candidate Harivansh Narayan Singh won the seat with 125 votes, while UPA candidate got 105 votes

Now the possible question that may knock your brain is how Rajya Sabha members are elected. Well, to inform you, Rajya Sabha election process is a complex process, not as simple as Lok Sabha election. Come; let’s take a look at the process that goes along with election and nomination.

The current strength of Rajya Sabha is 244. Out of these 244 seats, 232 are representatives of the States and Union territories of Delhi and Puducherry. Apart from these 232 members, President of India nominates 12 MPs. Elected legislators of the state assemblies and members of Electoral College of a Union Territory select a Rajya Sabha MP. The Vice-President is the chairperson of the house.

Meanwhile, electoral group includes members of the Legislative Assembly of the respective Union Territory. If we simplify go with the voting process, the voting formula is [(Number of MLAs X 100) / (Vacancies + 1)] + 1.

The political party that has a majority in the state Assembly normally gets to send the maximum number of MPs to the Rajya Sabha.  Here, MLAs don’t vote for each seat. Instead, the MLAs are given a paper with the names of all candidates. They have to give their order of preference for each candidate, marking 1,2,3… against their names. If 10 or more members choose a candidate as their first choice, he/she gets elected.

Every Rajya Sabha MP has tenure of six years and elections to one-third seats are held every two years. According to Section 154 of the Representation of the People Act 1951, a member chosen to fill a vacancy will serve for the remainder of his predecessor’s term of office.