15 seats across 3 states will go to polls for Rajya Sabha today

Elections for 15 Rajya Sabha seats across three states will be conducted on Tuesday.

With 41 members already declared winners without any contests last week, all eyes will be on the 10 seats in the fray in Uttar Pradesh, four in Karnataka and one in Himachal Pradesh.

Whips don't apply in polls to the Upper House, so the possibility of cross-voting exists. These polls are also a show of strength for respective political parties just weeks ahead of general elections.

Uttar Pradesh 

Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in India's most populous state hosted dinners for their lawmakers. The BJP, assured of support by nine Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) lawmakers, received another boost with Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) chief and Kunda lawmaker Raja Bhaiya assuring the support of his party's two lawmakers. "My party will vote for the BJP," Bhaiya confirmed at a dinner hosted by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for National Democratic Alliance lawmakers at the Lok Bhawan. Each candidate needs 37 votes to win.

The BJP has 252 lawmakers With its allies in the NDA, it has 277 votes. The RLD's nine and JD(L)'s two take it up to 288, but one NDA lawmaker is in jail, making its effective strength 287.

This is enough to elect seven members but the party has fielded an eighth candidate, Sanjay Seth, a prominent realtor in the state, who is likely to be short of nine votes. He was a Samajwadi Party Rajya Sabha member between 2016 and 2022. The SP camp has an effective strength of 108, which is enough to see two candidates through, but the third candidate will face a close fight against Seth.