New Delhi: The BJP has announced nine names for the coming by-election for Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament. The candidates include Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu for Rajasthan and George Kurian for Madhya Pradesh. There is also Kiran Chaudhary for Haryana, Mamta Mohanta for Odisha, Rajeev Bhattacharjee for Tripura, Dhairyashil Patil for Maharashtra, Manan Kumar Mishra for Bihar, Mission Ranjan Das for Assam and Rameshwar Teli.
The by-election to 12 Rajya Sabha seats will be held on September 3. The process of filing nominations started on August 14 and will continue till August 21.
Ten of these seats fell vacant as the sitting members, including Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Sarbananda Sonowal and Jyotiraditya Scindia, were elected to the Lok Sabha. Bypolls are also being held for two seats in Telangana and Odisha.
With this election, the NDA is hoping to gain majority in the Upper house which has eluded it for a decade.
Over the years, the huge Opposition numbers had often held up contentious government bills in the upper house. Some of them could be passed with the help of non-aligned parties like Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal and YS Jaganmohan Reddy's YSR Congress.
But this time, BJD, after losing the state election and going out of power after 24 years, has taken a firm stand against the BJP. The party has eight members in the Upper House.
Also, there are questions to on how accommodating YS Jaganmohan Reddy will be after losing Andhra Pradesh to BJP ally Chandrababu Naidu.
Under the circumstances, there is expectation that the contentious Waqf Amendment Bill will have an easy passage after the election.
In the current 229-member Upper House, the NDA has 105 MPs. Six nominated members, who usually cast their vote with the government, take the strength of the NDA to 111 - which is four short of the half-way mark of 115.
The NDA is hoping to win 11 of the 12 seats which will take its numbers to 122. The BJP is likely to win 9 seats and allies two -- RLP's Upendra Kushwaha and one seat for Ajit Pawar's party.
The Congress has 26 members in the Upper House and its allies add another 58, taking the INDIA bloc numbers to 84. The addition of one more seat will take the figure to 85.