Rajya Sabha polls: EC to hold biennial elections anytime

Hyderabad: While it is still not clear when the Election Commission will hold the biennial polls for vacant Rajya Sabha seats in several states, including TS and AP, though Assembly elections are due in Tamil Nadu, Assam and Kerala from where the RS vacancies need to be filled.

Past experience shows that the EC had held biennial polls for the RS seats ahead of Assembly polls as the elected MLAs are the voters for the Upper House of Parliament. While Tamil Nadu Assembly term ends May 22, RS members elected from the state are to retire on June 29.

Similarly, Assam Assembly term ends by June 5, but the RS members will retire by April 9, while Kerala Assembly term ends by May 31 and the RS members from this state will retire by April 2. Biennial elections are due in 16 states where the term of RS members will be completed between April 2 and August 1.

As per the Law, elections will need to be completed within six months from the date of completion of the term. Normally, biennial polls for the Rajya Sabha are conducted across the states within a single schedule

However it is up to the EC to either split or combine the polls and hold them before the Assembly term expires or after formation of the new House.

There is no word yet from the EC over appointment of Returning Officers for the elections which normally take place a month before announcement of the poll schedule.

Despite the uncertainty over conduct of RS biennial polls, there are a lot of aspirants from both TS and AP. As far as TS is concerned, V. Hanumantha Rao and Gundu Sudharani will be retiring by June 21.

It is an open secret that TRS, having welcomed a number of Opposition MLAs to the party, wants to bag both these RS seats. It is believed some more TD and Congress MLAs will be joining the TRS before the RS polls.

Assuming that the entire Opposition — TD, Congress and BJP, along with CPI and CPM members — fields a common candidate, even then the TRS, with its present strength in the House, will make it.

This would be the first RS biennial polls after formation of Telangana. Though Ms Sudharani resigned from the TD and joined the TRS, it is not clear whether TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao has given her any assurance that she would get a second term.

Incidentally, aspirants have started queuing up before Mr Chandrasekhar Rao and IT minister K.T. Rama Rao.

Sources close to Mr Chandrasekhar Rao say that D. Damodara Rao, owner of Telugu daily Namaste Telangana, and a close relative of the TS CM, is a certainty, while the names doing rounds for the second seat are the CM’s friend and former minister V. Laxmi Kantha Rao, irrigation contractor-cum-media man C.L. Rajam, former ministers D. Srinivas and S. Venugopala Chary, former MP Manda Jagannadham and a few others.

With regard to AP, terms of Union minister of commerce Nirmala Sitharaman, Union minister of state for science and technology Y.S. Chowdary (Sujana Chowdary), Congress member and former Union minister Jairam Ramesh and former Union minister of state J.D. Seelam will expire on June 21, 2016.

Of the four RS seats for which polls will be held, the TD-BJP combine is sure of winning three with the allies’ strength in the Assembly, while the fourth one will go to the YSR Congress due to its formidable strength in the AP Assembly.

However, Mr Naidu’s close aide and RS member C.M. Ramesh says that the TD will do all it can to ensure that the YSRC does not bag even one RS seat. “If we manage to attract more MLAs from the YSRC, and this is a certainty, we will win all the four seats,” Mr Ramesh said.

If the YSRC’s strength in the AP Assembly drops below 36 from the present 67 (four MLAs have already switched sides) the party cannot win the seat, he said.

For the remaining two seats from AP, one of the names doing rounds is of Mr Chowdary. Likewise, there is speculation over the nomination of Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu whose third RS term from Karnataka will end by June 30.