NEW DELHI: Five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar are set to fall vacant with the retirement of sitting members whose terms end on 9 April. The outgoing MPs are Harivansh Narayan Singh and Ram Nath Thakur of JD(U), Prem Chand Gupta and Amarendra Dhari Singh of the RJD, and Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Morcha. The elections to fill these seats will be determined by the current composition of the 243-member Bihar Legislative Assembly.
The ruling National Democratic Alliance enters the contest with a commanding numerical advantage. The NDA has 202 MLAs in the House — 89 from the BJP, 85 from JD(U), 19 from the Lok Janshakti Party, five from the Hindustani Awam Morcha and four from the Rashtriya Lok Morcha. The opposition Grand Alliance has 35 MLAs, including 25 from the RJD, six from the Congress, two from the CPI, and one each from the CPI(ML) and the Indian People’s Party.
Six MLAs sit outside both blocks — five from the AIMIM and one from the BSP.
With 243 MLAs voting to elect five Rajya Sabha members, the winning quota stands at 41 votes. On pure arithmetic, the NDA’s 202 MLAs are sufficient to secure four seats comfortably in the first round. These four seats would consume 164 votes, leaving the alliance with a surplus of 38 — just three short of the quota required for a fifth candidate.
This narrow gap is where the contest for the final seat will be decided. The combined strength of the Grand Alliance, even if it votes as a single unit, remains below the quota. To prevent the NDA from clinching the fifth seat, the opposition would need flawless coordination not only within its own ranks but also with the six non-aligned MLAs, along with perfectly executed preference transfers. Any abstention, invalid vote or error in marking preferences would immediately weaken that effort.
Notably, Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to visit Bihar on Wednesday for a three-day tour.
For the NDA, the bar is significantly lower. It requires cross-voting support from just three MLAs outside its fold to push its surplus beyond the quota and elect a fifth candidate. Given the presence of six non-aligned MLAs and Bihar’s past record of imperfect opposition coordination in Rajya Sabha elections, the ruling alliance is confident of bridging the gap.Within the NDA, securing three cross-votes is seen as a manageable task rather than a political stretch.
As a result, while four seats are effectively locked in for the ruling bloc, the fifth is being actively pursued rather than treated as marginal. The Assembly’s numerical landscape, combined with the mechanics of the single transferable vote system, has created a situation in which a clean sweep is not guaranteed but is clearly attainable for the NDA.
Candidates must file their nomination papers by 5 March. Scrutiny of nominations will take place on 6 March, and the last date for withdrawal is 9 March. If the number of candidates exceeds the five vacancies—as the NDA’s push for a clean sweep suggests—voting by the 243 MLAs will be held on 16 March, with counting scheduled for 5 pm the same day.
However, if only five candidates are nominated for the five seats, they will be declared elected unopposed on the afternoon of 9 March.
The entire election process is scheduled to conclude by 20 March.