Chandigarh, February 18 The election for two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana will be held on March 16, as BJP members Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra are on track to complete their terms on April 9.
According to the Election Commission's election schedule, 37 Rajya Sabha seats will fall vacant on April 2 and 9 from ten states, including Haryana, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.
Notifications for the election will be issued on February 26. The election on March 16 will be held from 9 am to 4 pm, and the votes will be counted from 5 pm on the same day.
The last date for filing nominations is March 5. The scrutiny of nominations will be held on March 6, while the last date for withdrawing candidature is March 9.
The ECI has directed that only a pre-specified, violet-colored sketch pen, provided by the Returning Officer, shall be used for marking preferences 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 reach the Rajya Sabha from Haryana.
In August 2024, Kiran Choudhry, a former minister, was unopposed elected to the Rajya Sabha by-election from Haryana. She had joined the BJP ahead of the October 2024 Assembly elections after leaving the Congress.
The by-election 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, late Bansi Lal, getting a truncated RS term, she could again be a potential candidate for the BJP, sources said.
Other potential candidates 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 also in the running from the grand old party's camp.