By-polls for 6 Rajya Sabha seats confirmed by the Election Commission of India. One seat each from Assam, from West Bengal, from Madhya Pradesh and from Maharashtra , two from Tamil Nadu— on 4 October.
The Bengal seat is unoccupied after Manas Bhuyan chose to challenge the assembly election. The Assam seat fell vacant as Biswajit Daimary went on to contest assembly elections and serving as the speaker of the Assam assembly. The seat for Maharashtra is unoccupied after Rajiv Satav demised of Covid-19 related symptoms. Thawar Chand Gehlot’s seat remain empty. Two seats from Tamil Nadu are vacant. AIADMK leaders KP Munusamy and R Vaithilingam stepped back to contest assembly elections.
Congress defector Sushmita Dev merged with TMC, is likely to contest for the empty Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal. This was the part of the deal, she chose to jump ship from Congress to TMC. Dev was a member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from the Silchar seat in Assam. He lost the contest in 2019.
Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal will definitely contest for Assam seat. He was the chief minister of Assam for five years. In 2021, Himanta Biswa Sarme became the successor after him.
The Congress will take over two seats in Tamil Nadu, as per the deal between the DMK and the Congress.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, it is unlikely that certain leaders of the Congress high command, counting Rahul Gandhi, would agree. Among the names selected are a close aide of Rahul Gandhi.
Rajiv Satav’s unfortunate death confirmed that one of the front-runners for this particular seat is Mukul Wasnik from the Congress.
The vacancies for all the seats are of different timings. Bengal’s bypoll is next year. Tamil Nadu bypolls are in the next year and coming 2026. The same are the seats for Assam and Maharashtra. Bypolls from Maharashtra is in 2024.
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