The National Democratic Alliance romped home with all five Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar and three in Odisha, and one from Haryana on Monday (March 16, 2026)

The counting for the two seats in Haryana was delayed after the BJP and the Congress filed separate complaints.

A Congress delegation met with the Election Commission in Delhi and submitted a memorandum over the matter, with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge writing to the EC alleging attempts to interfere with the integrity of the election.

Rajya Sabha elections updates on March 16, 2026

Of the total 37 vacancies in Rajya Sabha, elections were held for only 11 seats in Bihar, Odisha and Haryana as the rest of the members were earlier elected unopposed.

In Odisha, the BJP secured the victory of three candidates, including Dilip Ray, a hotelier and Independent candidate it supported, while the Biju Janata Dal managed to win just one seat amid large scale cross-voting.

State BJP president Manmohan Samal, sitting BJP MP Sujeet Kumar and BJD candidate Santrupta Mishra romped home with a comfortable victories, with first preference votes from party MLAs. A fierce competition was expected between Mr. Ray and Datteswar Ray, a “common” candidate announced by BJD with support from the Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist).

In the end, it turned out to be a one-sided fight with many Congress and BJD MLAs voting across party lines in favour of Mr. Ray, one of founding members of the BJD. As many as 11 MLAs, including eight from BJD and three from Congress, had cross-voted.

Despite lacking the requisite numerical strength in the Odisha Assembly, the Mr. Ray secured an incredible victory. He had earlier pulled off a similar win in 2002, when the BJD was at its peak of its power.

In Haryana, where two Rajya Sabha seats were up for grabs, the process got stuck at the counting stage after the BJP and the Congress filed separate complaints. BJP’s Sanjay Bhatia and Congress party’s Karamvir Singh Boudh were declared elected in keenly watched elections as developments unfolded over allegations of violation of vote secrecy.

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, in a late-night press conference, congratulated both the leaders on their win.

Congress president Mr. Kharge wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner, saying there was an attempt at interference with the election to the Rajya Sabha in Haryana.

In the letter, Mr. Kharge, said “There is a clear attempt to interfere with the integrity of the election and it must be stopped – redressed by the EC immediately. Furthermore, no disqualification of our legitimate voters – votes cast can be allowed in what is clearly a transparent attempt to taint/derail the process.”

The BJP on its part had filed a complaint about a breach of secrecy in the votes of two Congress MLAs, including Bharat Singh Beniwal, MLA from Ellenabad, and Parmvir Singh, MLA from Tohana. The Congress party registered a complaint with the returning officer about a breach of secrecy in the vote of Cabinet Minister Anil Vij.

In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, 88 MLAs cast their votes. Two MLAs of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), including Arjun Chautala and Aditya Devilal, stayed away from voting. With 88 votes polled, the winning quota came down to 30 votes.

For Haryana’s two vacant Rajya Sabha seats, three candidates are in the fray. The Congress party had fielded Karmavir Singh Boudh while the BJP nominated Sanjay Bhatia. The third candidate was Satish Nandal as an Independent.

The ruling BJP has 48 MLAs, the Congress has 37, the INLD has two and three legislators are Independents in the 90-member Haryana Assembly.

In Bihar, all five candidates of the NDA made it to the Rajya Sabha after four MLAs of the Opposition Mahagathbandhan did not turn up for the voting. All 202 MLAs of the NDA cast their votes, whereas only 37 MLAs from the Mahagathbandhan voted.

The five candidates who secured victory included two from the BJP — national president Nitin Nabin and Shivesh Kumar, and two from the Janata Dal (United) — Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Ramnath Thakur. Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) president and former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha also secured victory.

Out of the six Congress MLAs, three skipped the voting process — Manohar Prasad Singh (Manihari), Surendra Prasad (Valimikinagar) and Manoj Bishwas (Forbesganj). Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA from Dhaka Assembly constituency Faisal Rahman also skipped voting.

There was a contest for the fifth seat between Mr. Shivesh Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate Amarendra Dhari Singh. As per the calculation, there was a requirement of 41 votes to win a seat from the NDA side and Mr. Shivesh Kumar got 38 votes whereas Mr. Singh got 37 votes.

According to the Assembly Secretariat, Mr. Nitish Kumar and Mr. Nitin Nabin each secured 44 votes whereas Mr. Thakur and Mr. Kushwaha got 42 votes each.

In the first preference round, Mr. Shivesh Kumar received 30 votes. Rajya Sabha follows a system called the Proportional Representation by means of a Single Transferable Vote (STV). In this system, instead of voting for just a single candidate, MLAs get a ballot paper with the names of all the candidates. They must then rank them in order of their preference, i.e. first choice, second choice and so on.

A candidate doesn’t need the most votes to win. They just need to reach a specific “quota”. This number is calculated based on the total number of MLAs voting and the number of seats available. If a winner gets more votes than the quota, their votes are transferred to the second preference. This is what happened when Mr. Shivesh Kumar defeated the RJD’s candidate Mr. Singh in second choice.

Published – March 17, 2026 12:12 am IST

When Parliament is in session, nearly 100 people file into soundproof booths overlooking the chamber of the House. These people, ranging from young graduates to retired government employees, have quite the mandate: relaying the proceedings of both Houses into 23 different languages, spanning most of India’s official languages, as well as Sanskrit.

Simultaneous interpretation is an exacting art — it requires listening to a speaker and translating their words in real time into another language. The process is so mentally taxing that interpreters swap spots every 30 minutes. The word order in most sentences is different in English from most Indian languages, forcing interpreters to rattle off sentences quickly, skip some phrases, and do it all while listening for the next sentence.

When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman delivered the Union Budget speech in English earlier in February, there were two ways of listening in: for MPs and those in the public gallery, a pair of headphones and a dial allowed them to tune into the translation in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and 20 other Indian languages; for those not in Parliament, there were live feeds on YouTube.

Vineeth (name changed) takes turns with three colleagues to translate Lok Sabha conversations in real time from English to a south Indian language. A humanities college graduate and politics buff, Vineeth looked up the Lok Sabha’s website at just the time in 2023 when the Lower House of Parliament was advertising for vacancies in a role that foreshadowed an overhaul in how Parliament did interpretations: all languages, all at once.

The job requires speed, presence of mind, and the ability to focus on two activities at the same time. It is especially challenging with sentence structure. For instance, in English, the subject-verb-object sees the most common usage, while in Hindi it is the subject-object-verb.

Now in 23 languages

The demand for simultaneous translation was raised the first time within the first week of the first session of Parliament, on May 19, 1952. A member from Andhra Pradesh asked then Speaker Ganesh Mavalankar if translations would be provided of speeches made in a language other than English and Hindi, show Parliament’s records.

Mavalankar scoffed at the suggestion. “Let us not raise imaginary difficulties,” he said, only to hastily add, “There may be genuine cases… in those cases the practice will be that the member who wishes to speak will give his own version and we shall also have to see and get it verified from some good source conversant with that language.” This is a form of consecutive translation. But ordinarily, Mavalankar hoped, members would speak in a language everyone in the House would understand. English continued to be the predominant language spoken on the floor.

During the five sessions of the provisional Parliament (January 1950–May 1952), Hindi was spoken for just 146 minutes. By the 1960s, there were more Hindi speakers in both Houses and the lingua franca was slowly changing. By 1963, the work towards setting up simultaneous translation facilities began.

In the decades thereafter, other languages faced a hurdle: interpreters were available for Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, and a couple of other languages, but MPs were required to inform the Speaker a day in advance, in writing, that they planned to speak in their own language. The Secretariat would then be able to ensure that an interpreter was available. Since 2023, it has become more and more common for MPs to speak in their own language, with real-time translations available for everyone else.

“The MPs are very happy,” Vineeth says, of the elected representatives who can now count on hearing proceedings in their own language all day long. “They visited us in the booth in the first few days and encouraged us.” At a closed parliamentary committee hearing, where interpreters are also stationed, Vineeth recalls, “An MP came to me and said, ‘You’ve improved a lot!’”

During a debate on the ‘Viksit Bharat’ – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB–G RAM G) Bill, 2025, many MPs from Vineeth’s State spoke in their own language, since rural employment was electorally important.

Many Indians speak at least two languages fairly well. Yet, simultaneous interpretation as a profession has been rarely relied upon outside Parliament, which is among the most prestigious positions, in terms of jobs. Vineeth recalls an “oration” test and an interpretation drill as a part of his initial evaluation, followed by nearly five weeks of training on recorded speeches.

Parliament does not make recordings of interpretations available on demand. The live feeds are taken down as soon as the House is adjourned for the day. A review of some feeds during the Budget Session show it is not unusual for interpreters to stumble, and the Lok Sabha Secretariat says in a disclaimer that the service is provided for the sake of convenience only.

On the job

Ram Kesarwani, a veteran of India’s simultaneous interpretation industry, says that the “pool” of interpreters working nationwide is just in the 100s. Kesarwani’s firm, Translation India, has been doing simultaneous interpretations since 2004. He says demand has always been limited to large events with the budget to hire them.

Kesarwani says that over half the contractual interpreters in Parliament — added in the last two years to provide interpretations into almost all of India’s official languages — have worked with his firm, or been directly trained by him.

“Since 2014, the business has gone up like anything, growing five- or six-fold,” Kesarwani says. “In 2004, when I started, I realised that even the equipment and foreign language interpreters were not available in India. Indian language interpreters were also not available because only Parliament had interpreters,” he says. “So if there was any need of simultaneous interpretation in any conference, meeting, or seminar, a request was put in to Parliament for their employees. Sometimes to the different universities for foreign languages.”

Ram Kesarwani, the founder of Translation India. File photo: Special Arrangement

When Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin convened a meeting with the CMs of Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab, and Telangana in Chennai, Kesarwani’s freelance interpreters relayed each speaker’s remarks into the respective Chief Minister’s languages, held in a hotel conference room.

Even as the simultaneous interpretation industry has seen a relative boom, he says it remains a challenging space to work in, as gigs can be hard to come by, and demand is seasonal. It spikes from October to February, when the weather is conducive for large conferences. “It doesn’t make for a secure career,” Kesarwani says.

While Parliament has permanent interpreters who draw salaries with benefits, most interpreters working there today were hired contractually, and are paid when the Houses are in session.

The pay per day in Parliament, for a contractual worker, is about ₹6,000. For conferences it can range between ₹15,000 and ₹35,000, with most events falling somewhere in between.

The pool of interpreters also includes a better-paid cohort — international language interpreters, translating for Prime Ministers and multilateral conferences. At a small gathering of interpreters in south Delhi earlier this week, some of the most seasoned participants in this ecosystem spoke about why the industry has stayed small.

A paucity and a push

Simultaneous interpretation within Indian languages is an emerging field. It has been around for a bit longer for international languages, though. “The Ministry of External Affairs used to have a dedicated cadre of interpreters,” says Anil Dhingra, a retired Spanish professor and simultaneous interpreter, who got his break with the Indian embassy in Madrid in 1975 when he was studying there, and has had the opportunity to work on many bilateral and multilateral events since. “Now they’ve stopped recruiting people in that cadre, and train Indian Foreign Service officers instead, in a foreign language abroad.” Now, he says, the MEA maintains an approved panel of interpreters who can be called on for foreign languages. In a post-World-War-II era, simultaneous interpretation became a necessity, with the establishment of a diplomatic community, as more and more nations got independence from colonial rule. The setting up of the United Nations and a multi-linguistic international landscape also emerged. The Nuremberg Trials, to prosecute Nazi war crimes, saw a particular need for simultaneous interpretation.

Anil Dhingra. File photo: Special Arrangement.

Dhingra feels the Indian government didn’t pay much attention to interpreters within India. “For the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in 1983, they got the entire team of simultaneous conference interpreters from abroad, through a British agency.” He concedes that India didn’t have the number of interpreters needed for an event at such a scale then, but that there should have been efforts to get Indian interpreters to apprentice with established professionals. He says there are still no courses that offer training in simultaneous interpretation in Indian languages.

In spite of these constraints, the interpretation pool has been “gradually” growing, says Prachi Chawla, a French-English interpreter. “There’s new demand for Hindi-Gujarati and other such Indian language pairs,” she said, citing LinkedIn job openings circulated among interpreters.

AI’s entry

People had one more way of listening to Sitharaman’s Budget speech logging into a free-to-air news channel’s regional language feeds on YouTube, where the Bengaluru start-up Sarvam AI was dubbing the speech in Sitharaman’s own voice into Hindi and other languages. The firm was using its latest translation model for Indian languages. This was the first AI-powered interpretation of Parliamentary proceedings.

The broadcast was delayed by two minutes, giving the start-up enough time to punctuate Sitharaman’s sentences, and for the translation model to generate translations that wouldn’t run on longer than her original remarks.

Machine translation is getting better in Indian languages, driven by government efforts like the National Language Translation Mission (BHASHINI) and private efforts by firms like Sarvam.

Kesarwani claims some recordings of Parliament’s consultant interpreters were being used to improve BHASHINI. Translation models get better, after all, when they have more data. The lack of online texts in Indian languages is a major reason why Indian language translation quality lags behind entrenched languages with online users, like European or East Asian tongues.

The AI wave has led to firms like Sarvam receiving unprecedented support in developing large language models (LLMs) and translation models that surpass their predecessors. Kesarwani says that machine translations for Indian languages are getting better quickly. “I think in the coming one or two years it will be perfectly alright.” He too has started providing AI-enabled services as a part of his suite of offerings. At a party of simultaneous interpreters, a fellow guest chides him for doing this.

At the party, there is music, and many professionals say that other types of skills that require coordinated movement, like playing the piano, coincide with an interpreter’s skill on the job.

Kesarwani has been doing this for 35 years now, and says those who built their careers on interpretation did so with international languages. “They are close to retiring, and new graduates haven’t come into interpretation in a big way.”

For the time being, Parliament will need real-life interpreters, as would large events, but AI is poised to find a place in the interpretation industry, he is sure.

With inputs from Sobhana K. Nair

aroon.deep@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew

YSRCP leader V Vijayasai Reddy on Saturday resigned as a member of Rajya Sabha and announced he was quitting politics due to “personal reasons”, the fourth party MP to short-terminate their terms in the Upper House since its rout in the 2024 Assembly elections.

He met Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar at his residence and submitted his resignation.

Reddy, a chartered accountant by profession who represented Andhra Pradesh in the House, later told reporters he still had three-and-half-years left in his second six-year term, but he was resigning due to personal reasons.

He said he would be focussing on agriculture and delivering guest lectures at universities henceforth.

“I have submitted my resignation to the vice president and the chairman of the Rajya Sabha, and he has accepted it,” Reddy told reporters after meeting Dhankhar.

“I, hereby, voluntarily resign from my seat in the Rajya Sabha with immediate effect as a member representing Andhra Pradesh from the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress party (YSRCP). Requesting you to kindly accept my resignation,” his short resignation letter to the VP stated.

The Rajya Sabha later notified Reddy’s resignation.

“Shri V. Vijayasai Reddy, an elected Member of the Council of States (Rajya Sabha), representing the State of Andhra Pradesh, resigned his seat in the Rajya Sabha and his resignation has been accepted by the Chairman, Rajya Sabha w.e.f, 25th January, 2025,” Rajya Sabha Secretary-General P C Mody said in the notification.

In a post on X, Reddy also shared pictures of his meeting with the vice president “Today, I submitted my resignation to the Hon’ble Vice President Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar Ji. Hon’ble Chairman of Rajya Sabha is pleased to accept the resignation with immediate effect duly recording the proceedings,” he posted.

Reddy said that before accepting his resignation, the vice president asked him specifically what are the reasons he was submitting his papers, and if it was voluntary or is there any coercion or undue influence.

“I have explained to the chairman that my resignation is voluntary, spontaneous and there is no coercion, pressure or no undue influence and I have given my resignation only due to personal reasons,” he said.

Asked whether he had spoken to YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy, he said, “Yes, I have spoken to my party president Jagan Mohan Reddy Garu yesterday. I have explained to him in detail the reasons why I have taken the decision to quit politics. And he has advised me not to do so.

“Despite the fact that he asked me not to do so, I have continued with my decision and I have submitted my resignation. And I will be quitting politics,” he added.

On his future plans, Reddy said his interests are is agriculture and giving guest lectures in various universities and sharing his knowledge with the youth and students.

“I am a chartered accountant and I have wide experience in capital markets and I have reasonably good experience in Parliament. The limited knowledge that I have gained in my 67 years of life, I would like to share it with others, because obtaining knowledge is one thing and giving knowledge to others is also equally important,” he said.

On the need for resigning now when he has some years of his term left, Reddy said, “I have sincerely felt that I am not in a position to do justice to the job that has been given to me by my party president and in the light of this I have submitted my resignation.” Reddy had announced on Friday that he would be resigning as Rajya Sabha MP and would be quitting politics.

This was his second term as Rajya Sabha member from Andhra Pradesh. He is the fourth YSRCP Rajya Sabha member to resign from the party after its rout in the 2024 Assembly elections.

YSRCP Rajya Sabha members M Venkata Ramana, B Mastan Rao Yadav and BC leader R Krishnaiah resigned in the recent past.

Krishnaiah and Yadav subsequently joined the BJP and TDP, respectively, and retained their seats in the Rajya Sabha by-elections.

After Reddy’s exit, the seat is expected to go to the ruling NDA in AP in the imminent by-election, owing to its overwhelming majority. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Parliament Winter Session Live Updates: The ongoing session will come to a close with the ruling and opposition sides clashing over Union Home minister Amit Shah’s remark over the mention of Dr BR Ambedkar in the House.

Members of the INDIA bloc will march from Vijay Chowk till the Parliament at 10 am, a day after dramatic scenes played out in Parliament as the BJP protested at the Makar Dwar, while the Opposition stood with Ambedkar posters demanding Mr Shah’s resignation. At the centre of the row is the minister’s remark, “It has become a fashion to say Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar’. If they took God’s name so many times, they would have got a place in heaven.” Two BJP MPs were hospitalised after suffering head injuries in a face-off between the opposition and NDA members.

Protests over various issues, including the Sambhal violence, Manipur situation and Congress’ link with billionaire George Soros, led to proceedings being washed out on most days. The Constitution debate saw Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi’s debut speech in the Lok Sabha, while in the Rajya Sabha, the opposition moved a no-confidence motion against Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Here are the Live Updates from the Winter Session on December 20: