NDA eyes 5 seats, oppn banks on allies as stage set for Rajya Sabha polls in Bihar today

Patna: Both the ruling NDA and the opposition Grand Alliance made an intense final push on Sunday to secure victory for their candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections scheduled for Monday.

With six candidates contesting for five seats from Bihar, voting has become necessary, making this one of the most closely watched Upper House contests in the state in recent years.The electoral arithmetic has made the contest particularly significant. The NDA is aiming to win all five seats but needs support from three opposition-side legislators to achieve that. The RJD-led Grand Alliance, meanwhile, is trying to ensure the victory of its lone candidate, sitting Rajya Sabha member Amarendra Dhari Singh.

For this, it requires the support of five AIMIM MLAs and one BSP legislator to reach the winning mark.Polling will begin at 9am on Monday. Throughout Sunday, leaders from both camps held meetings to consolidate support and prevent last-minute surprises. The Grand Alliance kept its legislators at a hotel in Patna to prevent possible “poaching” by rivals. The NDA, in contrast, organised meetings for its legislators at the residences of ministers and senior leaders across the capital.

At the same time, NDA lawmakers met at the residence of water resources minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary to finalise their voting strategy. CM Nitish Kumar, who is himself among the candidates, attended the meeting. Earlier, NDA legislators had also met at the residence of JD(U) national working president Sanjay Jha. JD(U) MLAs held another meeting at minister Leshi Singh’s residence, while the BJP convened its senior leaders at the State Guest House.Sources said the NDA camp includes around 100 first-time legislators who have never voted in a Rajya Sabha election. To avoid procedural mistakes and the risk of invalid votes, the alliance organised a mock voting session on Sunday to train these MLAs.Bihar has not witnessed actual voting in a Rajya Sabha contest for a decade. The last such instance was in the 2014 Rajya Sabha by-elections, when JD(U) candidates Pavan Kumar Varma and Gulam Rasool Balyawi defeated BJP-backed independents despite cross-voting by party MLAs.

Since then, every Rajya Sabha election from the state has been decided unopposed.Of the six candidates in the fray this time, five belong to the NDA and one to the RJD. Besides Nitish Kumar and BJP president Nitin Nabin, the NDA has fielded Union minister Ram Nath Thakur of the JD(U), RLM president Upendra Kushwaha, and BJP state general secretary Shivesh Kumar. The opposition’s sole candidate is Amarendra Dhari Singh.JD(U) senior leader and minister Shravan Kumar said the NDA would win all five seats. RJD spokesperson Chittaranjan Gagan, however, said the victory of Amarendra Dhari Singh was “certain” and that all 41 opposition legislators were united behind him.JD(U) state spokesperson Manish Yadav criticised the RJD’s decision to keep its MLAs in a hotel, saying, “The party whose leaders never tire of invoking democracy, constitution and people's mandate day and night, is today keeping its own MLAs locked up in a hotel under guard. The RJD has once again proved that they fear their defeat more than they trust the loyalty of their MLAs.”The five vacancies have arisen due to the retirement on April 9 of Prem Chand Gupta and Amarendra Dhari Singh of the RJD, Ram Nath Thakur and deputy chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh of the JD(U), and Upendra Kushwaha of the RLM.