The Election Commission of India (ECI) has formally started the process for elections of four Rajya Sabha members from the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir. For these four seats, three different notifications will be issued, the first two of which will be separate for elections to two seats.
For the third and fourth seat in the Upper House of Parliament, a combined notification will be issued, the EC announced in New Delhi on October 6. Given the numerical strength of various parties in the Legislative Assembly which was constituted in October last year, the National Conference (NC) and the Congress combine will easily win the first two seats. The NC has 41 MLAs and the Congress six, with one seat from Budgam won by the NC lying vacant. The BJP, which has 28 MLAs in the legislature, winning one of the seats in the third round of elections looks like a foregone conclusion. Its legislator, D S Rana, had died some time after his election.
A single notification for all the four Rajya Sabha seats, even when the elections are happening together, is not possible under the existing constitutional arrangements. Three separate elections, and as such three separate notifications, are in tune with the past practice being followed.
So far, neither the NC, nor the BJP, with 41 and 28 MLAs in the assembly, have announced their candidates. However, there were some reports in the local papers of J&K which said that the Congress, with six MLAs, also wants one Rajya Sabha seat. These reports can only be termed speculative right now as neither the NC nor the Congress have said anything on the issue.
Right since September 1982, Dr Farooq Abdullah became the chief minister after his father Sheikh Abdullah’s death, he has remained a legislator for most of the time. A member of the Lok Sabha from Srinagar, a member of the Rajya Sabha (twice) or a member of the assembly in J&K. He did not contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. However, it is likely that he may be sent back to the Rajya Sabha on October 24 again. That eventuality will leave the NC with two more seats yet.
The NC presently has two MPs in the Lok Sabha, Aga Rhullah and Mian Altaf, and they had won from Srinagar and Anantnag segments. The forthcoming Rajya Sabha elections, the number of its parliamentarians can rise to five.Incidentally, it is for the first time since 1982 that a member of the Abdullah family is not located in Delhi in the role of MP. In the past, when Dr Farooq Abdullah was chief minister from 1996 to 2002, his son Omar Abdullah was MP from Srinagar and had worked as a Minister of State (MoS) in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ministry.
As a young MP, Omar had worked as MoS Commerce and then MoS Foreign Affairs with Vajpayee. These early
stints had helped him network and hone his skills in the capital of India. It is likely that his elder son will contest the forthcoming by-elections from Budgam from a segment vacated by Omar after he won from Ganderbal also.
It needs to be mentioned here that for the first time since elections to the Rajya Sabha are being held in independent India, Ladakh will not have a say in these elections. This is because there is no legislature in Ladakh though there were four MLAs in 2014, one each elected from Leh, Nubra, Kargil and Zanskar. In the future, the Centre may evolve some new mechanism for the participation of Ladakh in the Rajya Sabha elections. There is no clarity on the subject at present.
The Election Commission on Monday issued three separate notifications, formally kick-starting the nomination process for four Rajya Sabha seats from J&K. Ghulam Nabi Azad is one of the most visible faces who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state of J&K more than once on the Congress ticket. After walking out of the Congress, it is almost after 40 years that he is not a legislator, either in the Legislative Assembly of J&K, or the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha.
The EC notifications were released after the President of India called upon the elected members of the J&K Legislative Assembly to elect representatives to the Upper House of Par
According to the EC schedule, October 13 has been fixed as the last date for filing nominations, while scrutiny of the papers will take place on October 14. Candidates may withdraw nominations until October 16. Polling will be held on October 24, with counting to take place the same day, the poll body has said. It will be in Srinagar that the voting will be held and the legislature will be in session when the elections are held.
The Commission clarified that three separate elections will be conducted for the four seats — two separate polls for the first and second seats and a combined election for the remaining two. Most political analysts expect the NC–Congress alliance to comfortably win three of the four seats, while the BJP appears well-ositioned to secure the fourth seat, as already stated above.
With seven independent MLAs in the assembly not bound by any party affiliation or voting disclosurerules, the BJP is believed to have a numerical advantage for one seat. However, some of these independent MLAs have been supporting the NC-Congress combine government. Independent MLA Satish Sharma from Khour (Chhamb) is a minister in Omar Abdullah-led ministry. Presently, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Mehraj Malik is in Kathua jail under Public Safety Act (PSA). It is not clear whether he will be allowed to participate in assembly proceedings or vote in the Rajya Sabha elections. It is likely that his legal team will try to get him out of the jail, however briefly, on grounds of the Rajya Sabha elections as also legislature session.
Notably, the anti-defection provisions under the 10th Schedule do not apply to Rajya Sabha elections, meaning political parties cannot issue whips to their legislators for voting in these polls.
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