New Delhi: Voting will be held on 16 Rajya Sabha seats across four states — Rajasthan, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka — on Friday. Ahead of the polling, political parties moved their lawmkaers to hotels to avoid being poached by the rivals. Polling is set to begin at 9 am and conclude at 4 pm. The counting of votes will take place at 5pm. Amid the allegations of horse-trading, the Election Commission also appointed special observers to ensure fair conduct of the electons. It has also ordered video recording of the entire process. Among the candidates whose electoral fate will be decided in these elections are Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Congress’s Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh and Mukul Wasnik and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut. Bienniel elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently. Out of this, 41 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were declared elected unopposed on June 4. However, elections for 16 seats were necessiated as the number of candidates exceeds the seats going to the polls.
