The voting for as many as 16 Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Indian Parliament) seats in four states is set to be held today, June 10. These states include Karnataka, Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. The polling will take place from 9 am to 4 pm and the counting will start from 5 pm.

The stakes are high for both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress party as both are trying to wrest extra seats with the help of independent candidates or smaller parties.

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The Rajya Sabha election 2022 will decide the electoral fate of prominent candidates such as Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Congress candidates Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, and Mukul Wasnik, and Shiv Sena’s ubiquitous face Sanjay Raut. All these leaders are expected to win without a hiccup.

Biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently and all 41 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand have been declared elected unopposed last Friday.

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However, elections will be held for 16 seats of Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka on Friday as the number of candidates exceeds the seats going to the polls.

Meanwhile, elections for the next President of India are all set to be held on July 18 in which 4,809 electors comprising MPs and MLAs will vote to elect incumbent Ram Nath Kovind’s successor, the Election Commission announced on Thursday.

Going by its strength in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, as well as in many state assemblies, the BJP is in a comfortable position to ensure the victory of the candidate nominated by it in the upcoming election.

The nominations can be filed till June 29 after the issue of notification on June 15, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told a press conference.

Counting for the poll will take place in the national capital on July 21, after all ballots from states are brought here.