Chandigarh, Feb 18 (PTI) The polling for two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana will be held on March 16, as BJP members Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra are on course to complete their terms on April 9.
According to the Election Commission’s poll schedule, 37 RS seats fall vacant on April 2 and 9 from ten states, including Haryana, Maharashtra, Himachal, and Tamil Nadu.
Notifications for the polls will be issued on February 26. Polling on March 16 will be held between 9 am and 4 pm, and votes will be counted from 5 pm the same day.
The last date of filing nomination is March 5. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on March 6, while the last date for withdrawal of candidature is March 9.
The ECI has directed that only an integrated violet colour sketch pen of pre-fixed specification, provided by the Returning Officer, shall be used for the purpose of marking preference on the ballot paper.
In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the ruling BJP has 48 MLAs, Congress 37, the INLD has two, while three Independents support the ruling party, with 31 votes each required for the two candidates to make it to the Rajya Sabha from Haryana.
In August 2024, Kiran Choudhry, a former minister, was elected unopposed in the Rajya Sabha bypoll from Haryana. She had joined the BJP ahead of the October 2024 Assembly elections after quitting the Congress.
The bypoll was necessitated after the Congress’s Deepender Singh Hooda was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rohtak. His Rajya Sabha term was to end on April 9, 2026.
With Choudhry, the daughter-in-law of former Haryana chief minister, the late Bansi Lal, getting a truncated RS term, she could again be in the reckoning as a BJP nominee, sources said.
Other probables from the BJP camp include state BJP chief Mohan Lal Badoli, former Haryana ministers Capt Abhimanyu and O P Dhankar, and party leaders Kuldeep Bishnoi and Sanjay Bhatia, they said.
Former Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan, Congress leader Raj Babbar and former Haryana Minister Karan Singh Dalal are in contention from the grand old party’s camp. PTI SUN VN VN
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