Sixty-eight Rajya Sabha members, including nine Union ministers, are completing their tenure this year, triggering a race of sorts among leaders across political parties to eye a six-year term in the Upper House of Parliament.
Of the 68 vacancies, elections have already been called for three seats in Delhi where AAP leaders Sanjay Singh, Narain Dass Gupta and Sushil Kumar Gupta will complete their tenure on January 27.
Elections have also been called for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Sikkim where SDF member Hishey Lachungpa will retire on February 23.
As many as 57 leaders, including Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav, Health Minister Mansukh Madaviya and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, will complete their tenure in April.
Uttar Pradesh will have the highest number of vacancies of 10 seats, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (six each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (five each), Karnataka and Gujarat (four each), Odisha, Telangana, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh (three each), Jharkhand and Rajasthan (two each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Chhattisgarh (one each).
Four nominated members are retiring in July.
For renomination to the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh, BJP president J P Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state as the Congress is in power there.
The Congress can also look forward to sending its nominees to the Upper House of Parliament from Karnataka and Telangana -- states where it came to power last year. In Karnataka, four Rajya Sabha members are retiring, and in Telangana, three.
The retiring members include Manmohan Singh and Bhupendra Yadav (Rajasthan), Ashwini Vaishnaw, BJD members Prashanta Nanda and Amar Patnaik (Odisha), BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni (Uttarakhand), Mansukh Mandaviya and Fisheries Minister Parshottam Rupala, and Congress members Naranbhai Rathwa and Amee Yagnik from Gujarat.
Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, MSME Minister Narayan Rane, former Union minister Prakash Javadekar, Congress member Kumar Ketkar, NCP member Vandana Chavan and Shiv Sena (UBT) member Anil Desai are retiring from Maharashtra.
In Maharashtra, the Rajya Sabha elections will be keenly watched after the political realignment in the state due to splits in the NCP and the Shiv Sena.
From Madhya Pradesh, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L Murugan, BJP members Ajay Pratap Singh and Kailash Soni and Congress member Rajmani Patel are retiring from the Upper House of Parliament.
In Karnataka, the retiring members are Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP and L Hanumanthaiah, G C Chandrashekhar and Syed Nasir Hussain of the Congress.
BRS's Joginipally Santosh Kumar Ravichandra Vaddiraju and B Lingaiah Yadav are the retiring members from Telangana. The Congress, which is power in Telangana, can hope to send at least two of its nominees to the Rajya Sabha from the state.
From West Bengal, Trinamool Congress members Abir Ranjan Biswas, Subhasish Chakraborty, Mohammed Nadimul Haque and Santanu Sen, and Congress member Abhishek Manu Singhvi are retiring from the Upper House of Parliament.
In Bihar, RJD members Manoj Kumar Jha and Ahmad Ashfaque Karim, JD-U members Aneel Prasad Hegde and Bashistha Narain Singh, BJP member Sushil Kumar Modi and Congress member Akhilesh Prasad Singh are completing their tenure in the Rajya Sabha.
BJP members Anil Agrawal, Ashok Bajpai, Anil Jain, Kanta Kardam, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, GVL Narasimha Rao, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sudhanshu Trivedi and Harnath Singh Yadav, and Samajwadi Party member Jaya Bachchan from Uttar Pradesh are retiring.
TDP member Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar, BJP member C M Ramesh and YSRCP member Prabhakar Reddy Vemireddy from Andhra Pradesh are retiring from the Rajya Sabha.
BJP members Saroj Pandey and D P Vats are retiring from Chhattisgarh and Haryana respectively.
In Jharkhand, BJP member Samir Oraon and Congress member Dhiraj Prasad Sahu are retiring from the Upper House of Parliament in May.
In Kerala, CPI-M member Elamaram Kareem, CPI member Binoy Viswam and KC-M member Jose K Mani are retiring in July.
Among the nominated members retiring in July are Mahesh Jethmalani, Sonal Mansingh, Ram Shakal and Rakesh Sinha of the BJP.
