Rajya Sabha
Sabha Polls on March 16; 37 Seats Across 10 States
Sharad Pawar Among 37 MPs Retiring
New Delhi: As the term of office of 37 members of the Council of States elected from 10 States is due to expire in April 2026, biennial elections for these 37 seats in the Rajya Sabha will be held on March 16, 2026, the Election Commission of India announced today. The electoral process will begin with the issuance of notifications on February 26. Nominations will close on March 5, scrutiny is scheduled for March 6, and candidates may withdraw their nominations by March 9. Voting will take place on March 16 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, with counting later the same evening.
These elections, spread across ten states — Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana — are crucial in determining the composition of the Upper House for the next biennium.
The Rajya Sabha has a sanctioned strength of 245 members, of which 233 are elected by state legislative assemblies, and 12 are nominated by the President. The effective majority mark in the House is 123. Current estimates place the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — at a position comfortably above this threshold, though precise figures vary depending on whether only elected members or also nominated members and supporting independents are included. Across recent parliamentary tallies, the NDA’s strength is generally assessed to lie between 121 and 134 seats, with the BJP’s own numbers fluctuating between 98 and 103 and the remainder accounted for by allies such as the Janata Dal (United), the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and other regional partners.
By comparison, the principal opposition bloc, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which includes the Indian National Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the DMK, the Aam Aadmi Party and several regional formations, is estimated to hold around 80 seats in the Upper House. These figures remain fluid, shaped by nominations, by-elections and shifting party affiliations, but the broad balance currently favours the ruling coalition.
Projections based on the current composition of state legislative assemblies indicate that the NDA is well-positioned to defend most of its retiring seats and may register modest gains. In states where the ruling coalition controls or dominates the assembly — including Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Maharashtra — the arithmetic favours NDA candidates. In Bihar in particular, the ruling alliance’s legislative strength makes a clean sweep of all five seats a strong possibility. Maharashtra, which has the largest number of seats in this cycle at seven, is expected to see the NDA capture a majority of them, although coordinated opposition strategies could still secure one or two seats.
In contrast, states such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh, where opposition parties command the assemblies, are likely to return candidates aligned with the INDIA bloc, limiting the ruling coalition’s gains from those regions. As a result, most analysts expect the NDA’s net improvement from this cycle to be incremental rather than dramatic, commonly projected at two to three additional seats, though more optimistic scenarios suggest the alliance could win 15 to 18 of the 37 seats in total when combining BJP and allied victories.
Taken together, these outcomes could push the NDA’s overall strength in the Rajya Sabha to around 137 seats or more, depending on final results and the status of nominated members. While cross-voting and late political shifts remain variables in closely contested states, the prevailing arithmetic suggests that the March 16 elections will consolidate the ruling coalition’s advantage in the Upper House. This, in turn, is expected to ease the passage of key legislation and reinforce the government’s parliamentary position over the next biennium, highlighting once again how state-level political equations shape the balance of power in New Delhi.
The March 16 elections are triggered by the retirement of several prominent parliamentarians whose terms end in April. In Maharashtra, outgoing members include Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar, Priyanka Vickram Chaturvedi, Dr Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, Ramdas Bandu Athawale, Dr Fauzia Tahseen Ahmed Khan, Dhairyashil Mohan Patil and Rajani Ashokrao Patil. Tamil Nadu will see the retirement of N. R. Elango, P. Selvarasu, M. Thambidurai, Tiruchi Siva, Dr Kanimozhi NVN Somu and G. K. Vasan. From West Bengal, the outgoing members include Saket Gokhale, Ritabrata Banerjee, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Subrata Bakshi and Mausam Noor.
In Bihar, whose five seats are part of this cycle, the retiring MPs are Amarendra Dhari Singh, Prem Chand Gupta, Ramnath Thakur, Upendra Kushwaha and Harivansh Narayan Singh. Odisha will see the exit of Mamata Mohanta, Muzibulla Khan, Sujeet Kumar and Niranjan Bishi, while Assam’s outgoing members include Rameswar Teli, Bhubaneswar Kalita and Ajit Kumar Bhuyan. Other states involved in the elections are Chhattisgarh, with Kavi Tejpal Singh Tulsi and Phulo Devi Netam retiring; Haryana, with Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra; Telangana, with K. R. Suresh Reddy and Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi; and Himachal Pradesh, with Indu Bala Goswami completing her term.
– global bihari bureau
