Moves and Countermoves: How Congress and BJP Are Scripting Their Rajya Sabha Polls Strategy

With the Rajya Sabha biennial elections drawing close, both the Congress and the BJP announced their candidate lists on Thursday, setting the stage for a keenly watched contest across ten states. The polls to 24 seats in the Upper House are scheduled for June 18 , with bypolls to three additional seats in Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Maharashtra being held simultaneously.

The Congress moved swiftly to field its top brass. Party president Mallikarjun Kharge heads the list, contesting from Karnataka along with party media department head Pawan Khera and AICC secretary Mansoor Ali Khan . For Khera, a familiar face on television debates and press briefings, the election will mark his debut in Parliament . Khan, who unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Bangalore Central, accepted the nomination with characteristic solemnity, pledging to uphold parliamentary standards and raise the voices of the unheard.

From Madhya Pradesh , Congress has fielded Meenakshi Natarajan , a former Lok Sabha MP from Mandsaur, who will fill the seat vacated after the completion of former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh's tenure . Natarajan currently serves as the party's Telangana in-charge.

Praveen Chakravarty , head of the party's Data Analytics and Professionals Wing , has been nominated from Tamil Nadu , a seat that became available after AIADMK MP C Ve Shanmugam resigned to join the state assembly. The berth came to Congress after ally TVK offered the party its lone Rajya Sabha seat. The list is rounded out by Neeraj Dangi , renominated from Rajasthan, and Pranav Jha from Jharkhand, who is currently attached to the Congress president's office.

The BJP, meanwhile, announced 11 candidates finalised at a Central Election Committee meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi , aimed at strengthening the NDA's numbers in the Upper House. Among those fielded are Tai Tagak from Arunachal Pradesh, Tarun Chugh and Rajneesh Agrawal from Madhya Pradesh, A Sharda Devi from Manipur, and Satish Poonia from Rajasthan, along with several candidates from Gujarat.

The nomination of Tarun Chugh , the BJP's national general secretary, is being viewed as politically significant ahead of the Punjab elections , where he is one of the party's prominent faces. Former Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia also finds a place in the list.

Perhaps the most politically significant aspect of the BJP's announcement is who was left out. Union Ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were not renominated despite their Rajya Sabha terms ending on June 21, sparking speculation about a possible Cabinet reshuffle . Their exclusion has fuelled discussions over whether Prime Minister Modi is preparing to restructure his council of ministers ahead of the Punjab polls.

In Odisha, attention has shifted to Debashish Samantaray , a former BJD MP who switched to the BJP barely ten days before being rewarded with a Rajya Sabha ticket. Samantaray, who entered the Upper House as a BJD nominee in 2024, resigned citing his inability to meet party chief Naveen Patnaik and blamed V K Pandian for his departure. Given the BJP's overwhelming majority in the Odisha Assembly , his election is widely seen as a certainty.

The last date for filing nominations is June 8 , with scrutiny scheduled for June 9 and withdrawals closing on June 11. With both national parties having revealed their candidates, the elections are expected to provide an important snapshot of the current parliamentary arithmetic ahead of a politically crucial second half of the year.