Rajya Sabha elections / Know how voting takes place in Rajya Sabha, MLAs vote not the public, understand the entire process

Rajya Sabha elections: Elections for 56 Rajya Sabha seats are going to be held in 15 states of the country on Tuesday, 27 February 2024. All the parties have announced their candidates. Maximum 10 seats for Rajya Sabha are in UP, out of which 7 seats are expected to go to BJP and 3 seats to SP. The contest in UP is expected to be exciting as there is every possibility of an upset on one seat of Samajwadi Party. The process of Rajya Sabha elections is such that even before voting, it is known how many seats each party is getting. The first reason for this is that there is no secret voting in the Rajya Sabha and the second is that the members here are elected through indirect elections.

Now the question must be arising in your mind that how is this decided and then why is the voting process like this. So first of all let us tell you about Rajya Sabha that the Chairman of Rajya Sabha is the Vice President of India and the members of this House are elected for six years but the tenure of one third of these members is completed every two years. That means one-third of the members of Rajya Sabha change every two years. This is completely different from the Lok Sabha elections.

The tenure of Rajya Sabha members is up to six years, whereas the tenure of MPs in the Lok Sabha is five years. Apart from the Lok Sabha elections, the MPs who go to the Rajya Sabha are not elected by the public, these MPs are elected by the MLAs elected by the public. At present, the number of members in the Rajya Sabha is 245 representing the states and union territories of Delhi and Puducherry. This time Rajya Sabha elections are being held in UP, Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Odisha, Haryana, Himachal, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

What is Rajya Sabha after all?

After the first Lok Sabha elections held in the country, the need for another house in the Parliament was felt and Rajya Sabha was formed on August 23, 1954. Rajya Sabha is a permanent house, it is never dissolved. The maximum number of seats in Rajya Sabha is 250 and its 12 members nominate the President. All these 12 members come from fields like sports, arts, music and the remaining 238 Rajya Sabha members come from states and union territories.

How are Rajya Sabha elections held?

MLAs i.e. MLAs vote in Rajya Sabha elections and the voting formula for Rajya Sabha elections is also quite different. The total assembly seats are divided by adding one to the vacant Rajya Sabha seats of a state and then one is added to it.

In the voting for Rajya Sabha, all the MLAs vote and their vote is counted only once. Therefore they cannot vote for every seat. In such a situation, MLAs have to vote on the basis of priority during elections. They have to write on paper and tell who is their first choice and who is their second choice, then the one who gets more votes for the first choice will be considered the winner.

The formula for counting votes is difficult

The process of counting votes for Rajya Sabha elections is quite complex. A candidate contesting an election needs to secure a certain number of votes, which is called quota. The calculation of this quota depends on the number of vacancies to be filled. If the elections are being held to fill a post, the quota will be calculated by dividing the total valid votes by the number of seats to be filled, adding one to that and adding a number to the quotient.

Understand the mathematics of votes like this

For example, elections are to be held on 10 seats of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. Elections for 56 seats of Rajya Sabha are going to be held in 15 states of the country on Tuesday 27 February 2024. All the parties have announced their candidates. Maximum 10 seats for Rajya Sabha are in UP, out of which 7 seats are expected to go to BJP and 3 seats to SP. The contest in UP is expected to be exciting as there is every possibility of an upset on one seat of Samajwadi Party. The process of Rajya Sabha elections is such that even before voting, it is known how many seats each party is getting. The first reason for this is that there is no secret voting in the Rajya Sabha and the second is that the members here are elected through indirect elections.

There are 403 members in the UP Assembly. So first of all 403 is multiplied by 100 and we get 40300. After this, one is added to the number of seats (10), which is 11. Now let's divide 40300 by 11, which is 3663. This means that Rajya Sabha candidates in UP need around 3700 votes to win. That means for a seat the candidates need the support of at least 37 MLAs, only then they will win.

These are the special things

There is no secret ballot in Rajya Sabha elections nor are EVMs used in it. In this, a paper is given in which a number from one to four is written in front of the name of each candidate. The MLAs have to mark it on the basis of preference.

To be a Rajya Sabha member, candidates must be a citizen of India. The candidate must have completed 30 years of age and should not hold any office of profit. He must not be insane or bankrupt and must possess the qualifications prescribed by law of Parliament.