New Delhi : The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday announced that bypolls to six vacancies in Rajya Sabha across four states will be held on December 20, and the votes will be counted on the same day.
Three vacancies were created in Andhra Pradesh when YSRCP members Venkataramana Rao Mopidevi, Beedha Masthan Rao Yadav and Ryaga Krishnaiah had quit their membership in August and joined BJP. The terms of Yadav and Krishnaiah as Rajya Sabha members were to end on June 21, 2028, while Mopidevi was to retire on 21 June, 2026.
The state has eleven seats in the Rajya Sabha, all of which were occupied by YSRCP until these three resignations that left three vacancies. TDP currently has no members in the Rajya Sabha but after it won 135 of the 175 Assembly seats in the state elections that were held alongside the general elections, it has the numbers to send members to the upper house again.
In Odisha, Sujeet Kumar of Biju Janata Dal had resigned on September 6 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party the same day. After his resignation, the BJD had expelled him with immediate effect for engaging in anti-party activities. His Rajya Sabha terms was to end on April 2, 2026.
Odisha has 10 Rajya Sabha seats, seven of which are occupied by BJD MPs, 2 by BJP MPs and Kumar’s seat is vacant. One of the BJP MPs, Mamata Mohanta, is a turncoat from BJD who had joined the BJP within 24 hours of submitting her resignation on July 31. She was subsequently the BJP candidate in the RS bypolls for the seat. After the Odisha assembly elections held this summer, the BJP won 79 of the 147 assembly seats, while NDA has a total of 81 seats, giving BJP the numbers to send an RS member from the state.
In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress’s Jawhar Sircar had resigned on September 19 and quit politics altogether due to the lack of action by the Mamata Banerjee government in the wake of the RG Kar Medical College rape and murder case. His term was also until April 2, 2026. The state has 16 seats in the Rajya Sabha, 12 of which are occupied by TMC, 2 by the BJP and one by CPI (M). In the state assembly, TMC has 225 of the 294 seats while BJP has 66.
In Haryana, Krishan Lal Panwar had resigned from the Rajya Sabha on October 14 after he was elected as the MLA from the state’s Israna constituency. The state has five seats in Rajya Sabha, three of which are occupied by the BJP MPs and one by an independent candidate. Of the 90 seats in the Haryana assembly, BJP has 48 MLAs and through NDA, 51 while Congress has 37 MLAs.
