Delhi, March 15: Voting to fill 37 Rajya Sabha seats across 10 states is commencing tomorrow.
Polling will be conducted between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on Monday and the counting of votes will be taken up the same day at 5:00 p.m. The entire election process is scheduled to be completed by March 20, said Election Commission of India’s notification.
Voting The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the schedule for the upcoming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha to fill 37 seats that will fall vacant in April 2026 across 10 States.
The vacancies arise as the terms of 37 members of the Council of States elected from Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana are set to expire in April 2026. In view of the impending retirements, the Commission has laid out a detailed timetable for the electoral process.
According to the ECI schedule, the notification for the elections was formally issued on February 26. The last date for filing nominations was fixed as March 5, while scrutiny of nomination papers tool place on March 6. Candidates were allowed to withdraw their nominations until March 9.
The Commission has specified that only integrated violet colour sketch pens of pre-determined specifications, supplied by the Returning Officer, will be permitted for marking preferences on ballot papers. It has clarified that no other writing instrument will be allowed. To ensure transparency and fairness, observers will be deployed to closely monitor the conduct of the elections.
The members whose terms are ending include Dr. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, Dr. Fauzia Tahseen Ahmed Khan, Priyanka Vickram Chaturvedi, Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar, Dhairyashil Mohan Patil, Rajani Ashokrao Patil and Ramdas Bandu Athawale from Maharashtra; Mamata Mohanta, Muzibulla Khan, Sujeet Kumar and Niranjan Bishi from Odisha; N.R. Elango, P. Selvarasu, M. Thambidurai, Tiruchi Siva, Dr. Kanimozhi NVN Somu and G.K. Vasan from Tamil Nadu; Saket Gokhale, Ritabrata Banerjee, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Mausam Noor and Subrata Bakshi from West Bengal; Rameswar Teli, Bhubaneswar Kalita and Ajit Kumar Bhuyan from Assam; Amarendra Dhari Singh, Prem Chand Gupta, Ramnath Thakur, Upendra Kushwaha and Haribansh Narayan Singh from Bihar; Kavi Tejpal Singh Tulsi and Phulo Devi Netam from Chhattisgarh; Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra from Haryana; Indu Bala Goswami from Himachal Pradesh; and Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi and K.R. Suresh Reddy from Telangana.
Apart from it, one seat in West Bengal was vacant from January 5, 2026.
