Rajya Sabha election result Highlights: BJP gains in Upper house, wins 12 of 26 seats

Voting for Rajya Sabha seats in six states – Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana – started on Friday morning.

For the 58 Rajya Sabha seats to be filled, 33 candidates from 10 states have been unanimously elected. Voting for the remaining 25 seats was held in the six states. They are, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Telangana. Voting for bypoll to a Rajya Sabha seat from Kerala was also held on Friday.

Counting of votes began at 5 pm.

The Rajya Sabha vacancies next month include 17 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 12 from the Congress. Three nominated members – actress Rekha, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, and social worker Anu Aga – will retire in April. The BJP has filed 18 candidates for the biennial polls.

Read | NDA could increase RS tally, but will be short of majority before 2019 polls

Counting of ballots began an hour after the end of voting.

Here are the live updates:

Rajya Sabha election results are as follows:

Uttar Pradesh — 10 seats, BJP wins 9 and Samajwadi Party takes 1

Jharkhand — 2 seats, BJP and Congress win one each

Chhattisgarh — 1 seat, won by BJP

Telangana — 3 seats, all won by Telangana Rashtra Samithi

West Bengal — 5 seats, Trinamool Congress bags four seats, Congress takes 1

Karnataka — 4 seats, Congress wins 3, BJP takes 1

Kerala (bypoll) — 1 seat, won by Janata Dal

11:59pm: BJP wins nine seats in UP. In Jharkhand, BJP and Congress bag one seat each.

11pm: UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath says all nine BJP candidates have won Rajya Sabha seats in the state: ANI

10:39pm: BJP wins all nine Rajya Sabha seats it contested in Uttar Pradesh, says UP minister Satish Mahana: PTI.

10:18pm: BJP workers celebrate, claim Anil Agrawal has won 10th seat. Official announcement yet to be made.

10:12pm: “BJP’s Arun Jaitley, Anil Jain, GVL Narasimha Rao, Vijay Pal Tomar, Kanta Kardam, Ashok Bajpai, Harnath Yadav and Sakaldeep Rajbhar, along with SP’s Jaya Bachchan have won. Calculation of Anil Aggarwal is on. He is going to win,” says JPS Rathore, BJP polling agent, according to ANI.

10:10pm: BJP candidate Anil Agarwal has got 16 first preference votes. BSP candidate got 32 first preference votes. The BSP candidate has not yet got any second preference votes, which means BJP is likely to win the ninth seat.

10:06pm: BJP wins 8 seats. Counting on for last seat.

9:52pm: Samajwadi Party’s Jaya Bachchan wins another term in Uttar Pradesh, reports Times Now.

9:30pm: UP parliamentary affairs minister Suresh Khanna says two votes have been declared invalid.

9:18pm: BJP’s Rajeev Chandrashekhar wins one seat from Karnataka, says, “I am very happy to have received the maximum number of votes. Happy with the trust shown in me. It is an honour for me to serve Karnataka and serve my city Bengaluru,” according to ANI.

9:14pm: Results declared so far:

Chhattisgarh — 1 seat, won by BJP

Telangana — 3 seats, all won by Telangana Rashtra Samithi

West Bengal — 5 seats, Trinamool Congress bags four seats, Congress takes 1

Karnataka — 4 seats, Congress wins 3, BJP takes 1

Kerala (bypoll) — 1 seat, won by Janata Dal

8:55pm: In Karnataka, Congress bags three Rajya Sabha seats and the BJP one. Returning officer declares Congress’ Dr L Hanumanthaiah, Dr Syed Naseer Hussain and G C Chandrasekhar as winners along with BJP’s Rajeev Chandrashekar: PTI

8:20pm: Election Commission rejects complaint against Jharkhand Vikas Morcha MLA Prakash Ram after reviewing security footage. It was alleged that he did not show his ballot paper to the party’s authorised representative after casting vote.

8pm: Mamata Banerjee celebrates her party Trinamool Congress’ victory.

7:55pm: Counting of votes underway in Jharkhand after Election Commission rejects complaints from the Congress about a JVM legislator showing his ballot paper.

7:27pm: “I do believe in democracy. My priority will be to fight against corruption,” says Subhasish Chakraborty: ANI.

7:25pm: Trinamool Congress bags four seats and the Congress one from West Bengal. All four Trinamool candidates – incumbent member Nadimul Haque and first time nominees Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Santanu Sen – win.

7:15pm: Congress’ Abhishek Manu Singhvi wins Rajya Sabha elections from West Bengal. Says “it is humbling and uplifting, it is a result of cooperation between different groups and MLAs”.

7:05pm: Counting begins in Uttar Pradesh after two-hour delay.

6:58pm: Telangana Rashtra Samithi bagged all the three Rajya Sabha seats in the state. Joginipalli Santosh and Badugula Lingaiah Yadav got 32 votes each, while Banda Prakash Mudiraj got 33 votes.

6:55pm: TDP leader CM Ramesh unanimously elected to Rajya Sabha for another term: ANI

6:51pm: Abir Ranjan Biswas of the Trinamool Congress wins West Bengal Rajya Sabha seat: ANI

6:50pm: Janata Dal leader MP Veerendra Kumar elected to Rajya Sabha from Kerala. He got 89 votes while his opponent D Babu Prasad of the Congress polled 40 votes. Eight legislators of the Kerala Congress (Mani) and lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal boycotted the polling.

6:40pm: Counting resumes in Karnataka.

6:35pm: SP and BSP demand that the Election Commission declare the votes of BJP’s Nitin Agrawal and BSP’s Anil Singh invalid for allegedly not showing their ballot papers to the polling agent: ANI

6:27pm: Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) suspends its legislator Prakash Ram for cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls, according to IANS.

6:05pm: BJP’s Saroj Pandey wins from Chhattisgarh by beating Congress’ Lekhram Sahu, says ANI.

6pm: Counting has yet to begin in Uttar Pradesh. Election Commission has not given permission due to discrepancy on ballot papers.

5:45pm: Counting of votes for the Rajya Sabha election has been halted in Karnataka after the Janata Dal (Secular) accused two Congress legislators of being allowed to cast their vote twice. A ballot agent had asked the legislators to cast their vote again after they showed their ballot paper to the agent. Returning officers are waiting for the Election Commission’s instructions.

5:05pm: Counting of votes begins, reports ANI.

2:05pm: “Two senior Congress leaders cross-voted in the first ballot paper. Returning officer allowed them to vote again in fresh ballot paper. Illegal voting is going on... have requested election commission observer to counter-mandate the process,” says HD Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka.

2:00pm: Janata Dal (Secular) wants Rajya Sabha elections cancelled: TV reports.

1:40pm: Independent MLAs Raja Bhaiya and Vinod Saroj say they will vote for Samajwadi Party candidate.

1:30pm:

1:00pm: Voting for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Kerala is underway, with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan being among the early voters. MP Veerendra Kumar, the state president of the Janata Dal (U) Sharad Yadav faction, is the candidate supported by ruling CPI(M)-led LDF, while B Babu Prasad is the UDF candidate.

11:40am: Samajwadi Party leader Ram Govind Chaudhary says Akhilesh Yadav’s strategy worked as the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate got nine Samajwadi Party votes, seven Congress votes and one Rashtriya Lok Dal vote as promised to the BSP chief.

11:30am: Independent MLA Amanmani Tripathi says he voted for the BJP candidate after getting directions from Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

11:20am: NISHAD party MLA Vijay Mishra in Uttar Pradesh says there is no alliance between his party and the Samajwadi Party. “There was no pressure on me to support the BJP candidate.”

11:15am: “All the 9 candidates of BJP will win. SP insulted their worker and the people will answer them for choosing a candidate that entertains the society rather than one who serves the society,” Nitin Agrawal, SP, tells ANI.

10:35am: Here’s a look at key BJP candidates in Rajya Sabha elections:

10:30am: I have voted for BJP, I don’t know about the rest: Anil Singh, BSP MLA.

10:20am: Shivpal Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) legislator from Jaswantnagar, tells reporters after casting his vote that he was sure that the Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) candidate Bhimrao Ambedkar would win the Rajya Sabha seat.

He also trashes reports that there would be cross voting in favour of a ninth candidate for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Anil Jain.

10:05am: Samajwadi Party leader Sunil Sajan says 35 of the party’s MLAs have voted. “The BJP is indulging in horse trading,” he adds.

10:00am:

9:55am: “There will be no cross-voting, but yes BJP MLAs will cross-vote in our favour,” Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav tells ANI.

9:50am: “BJP will win all the nine Rajya Sabha seats where we have fielded our candidates. Nine more BJP candidates will make entry to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh this time,” UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya tells ANI.

9:42am: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath meets BJP MLAs ahead of Rajya Sabha voting.

9:40am: BSP MLA Uma Shankar Singh says though the party has 19 MLAs, it will get 17 votes due to party member Anil Singh’s rebellion and MLA Mukhtar Ansari’s court ruling. “A few BJP MLAs might also support the BSP candidate,” he says.

9:30am:

9:20am: Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav claimed that there was no division in the party. “Both SP and BSP MLAs will win,” he says.

9:15am: Samajwadi Party, Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs come out of Tilak Hall together to show alliance.

9:05am: Voting for Rajya Sabha elections begins.

9am: SP candidate Jaya Bachchan Ji and BSP candidate, (Bhim Rao Ambedkar) whom we are supporting, will win the Rajya Sabha elections. Considering BJP’s condition, I’d say that its own MLAs are annoyed and some of them may even end up siding with the opposition: Rajendra Chaudhary, SP

• Out of the 58 seats, 33 candidates will be elected unanimously from 10 states. Voting for the remaining 25 seats will be held in six states: Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.

• How a RS member is elected -- RS members are elected through indirect voting by MLAs through the process of proportional representation. In other words, it means the number of Rajya Sabha MPs will depend of the size of the population of that state.

All you need about Rajya Sabha elections