Voting underway for Rajya Sabha seats, focus on UP

New Delhi: Voting was underway in seven states in the country to elect Rajya Sabha members.

Uttar Pradesh:

In UP, voting for the crucial ten seats began at 9 a.m., at the Tilak hall in the Vidhan Sabha building.

It will conclude at 4 p.m., after which counting will begin at 5 p.m.

Shivpal Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party's (SP) legislator from Jaswantnagar, told reporters after casting his vote that he was sure that the Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) candidate Bhimrao Ambedkar would win the Rajya Sabha seat.

He also trashed reports that there would be cross voting in favour of a ninth candidate for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Anil Jain.

"The entire opposition is united in these biennial polls," he said.

Congress legislators have also cast their vote.

Ajay Kumar said all conspiracies and dirty tricks of the BJP to wean away MLA's from other parties will fail miserably.

The Congress's seven legislators have pledged support to the BSP candidate.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is also in the Vidhan Sabha premises along with many of his ministerial colleagues.

BJP has fielded nine candidates while the SP and BSP have named one each.

Karnataka:

Polling was underway on Friday for four Rajya Sabha seats in Karnataka.

"Polling began at 9 a.m., on a steady note in the state legislature building to elect four of the five candidates in the fray for the Upper House seats," said an election official.

Five candidates, including three from the ruling Congress and one each from the opposition -- Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) -- are contesting for the four seats.

The Congress candidates are L. Hanumanthaiah, G.C. Chandrasekhar and Syed Naseer Hussain and BJP candidate is Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who is seeking a second term, as his first term as an Independent member ends on April 2.

The election has been necessitated to fill the vacancies arising out of the retirement of incumbent members Basawaraj Patil, Rahman Khan and R. Ramakrishna of the Congress and Chandrasekhar.

West Bengal:

Kolkata: Voting was underway here on Friday to elect five Rajya Sabha members from West Bengal.

Six candidates are in the fray for the biennial election to the Upper House of Parliament.

The Trinamool Congress has nominated four candidates -- sitting member Nadimul Haque and first time nominees Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Santanu Sen.

The Trinamool has also lent its backing to Congress's sole candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

As per the Trinamool strategy, the party's excess votes would be given to Singhvi after ensuring the victory of its own four candidates.

Senior CPI-M leader Rabin Deb, backed by the Left Front, is also in the fray.

Telangana:

Hyderabad: Polling was underway on Friday for the three Rajya Sabha seats in Telangana.

Members of the state Legislative Assembly began casting their votes at 9 a.m. and the process will continue till 4 p.m., officials said.

The counting of votes will begin at 5 p.m. and the results are likely to be announced an hour later.

The election became inevitable after the opposition Congress party fielded a candidate though the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has the strength to bag all three seats.

The TRS has fielded J. Santosh Kumar, B. Lingaiah Yadav and B. Prakash while former union minister P. Balram Naik is in the fray as the Congress candidate.

In the 119-member Assembly, the TRS has sufficient numbers to get all its candidates elected.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (five members), Telugu Desam Party (TDP) (two) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) (one) have decided to abstain from voting.

Polls are underway in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh too.

A bypoll will also be held for one seat in Kerala where M P Veerendra Kumar, the Left-backed candidate of Sharad Yadav faction of the JD(U), is pitted against Babu Prasad of the Congress.