Contest set for RS polls as six candidates remain for 5 seats

Patna: All six candidates, including chief minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar and BJP national president Nitin Nabin, remain in the contest for five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar after no one withdrew papers by Monday (March 9), the final date for withdrawal of nomination.A Bihar assembly official said since no candidate came forward to withdraw by Monday evening, all six are now officially in the fray. With six candidates contesting for five seats, voting will now be held on March 16 to decide the winners. This will mark Bihar’s first Rajya Sabha election requiring voting after a gap of around 12 years. The last such contest took place in the 2014 Rajya Sabha byelections, when JD(U) nominees Pavan Kumar Varma and Gulam Rasool Balyawi defeated BJP-backed independent candidates despite cross-voting by some party MLAs. Since then, all biennial and byelections to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar have been decided unopposed because the number of candidates matched the number of vacancies. Of the six candidates in the current contest, five belong to the ruling NDA and one is from the opposition RJD. Apart from Nitish and Nitin, the NDA has fielded Union minister Ram Nath Thakur of JD(U), who is seeking a third consecutive term in the Upper House; RLM president Upendra Kushwaha, who is aiming for a second straight term; and BJP state general secretary Shivesh Kumar, a former MLA seeking his Rajya Sabha debut. The lone opposition candidate is RJD’s Amarendra Dhari Singh, a sitting MP and businessman-turned-politician. Under the electoral formula for the Rajya Sabha polls in Bihar, a candidate needs the support of at least 41 MLAs to secure victory. In the Nov assembly elections last year, the NDA won 202 seats in the 243-member House, while the RJD, Congress and Left parties together were reduced to 35 seats. With a strength of 202 MLAs, the NDA is confident of winning all five seats if it can secure the backing of three more MLAs from smaller parties. Meanwhile, the BJP has appointed Chhattisgarh deputy CM Vijay Sharma and Union minister of state Harsh Malhotra as central observers for Bihar. BJP national president Nitin Nabin has named the two along with other party leaders for two more states.