As the Rajya Sabha members who have been elected to the lok Sabha have resigned, the Election Commission of India has announced bye-polls for these seats.
The elections have been announced for nine seats including that of Faggan Singh Kulaste from Madhya Pradesh. The tenure of Kulaste was till April 2, 2018.
After having elected to the lok Sabha, Kulaste resigned from the Rajya Sabha membership on May 16.
As per schedule, the notification to fill the vacancies would be issued on June 2. The last date for making nominations is June 9. The scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on June 10, while till June 12, the nominations could be withdrawn. Date of polling will be June 19 from 9 am to 4 pm, if needed.
After the Election Commission has issued the programme for the election on one seat from Madhya Pradesh, lobbying for the vacant post has commenced. Going by the number of members of different parties in the State Assembly, it is certain that the vacant seat would go to the ruling BJP.
The leaders who were denied ticket this time are Raghunandan Sharma and Kailash Joshi. Both the leaders were waiting for vacancy in the Upper House, so that they could get elected there.
However, there are other possibilities like the high command sending somebody from New Delhi for the vacancy. There are Prakash Javdekar and Nirmala Sitaraman, who have recently been inducted in the Union Cabinet and they are not members of lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha.
As per rules, they have to be elected to any House within six months. Thus, party sources claimed that there are strong possibilities that one of these two Central Ministers would be sent to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.