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Rajya Sabha Polls
Why it is in news?
- Recently Rajya Sabha Elections were held for 19 seats.
- What is peculiar to the Rajya Sabha polls as far as the electorate is concerned?
- Only elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies can vote in a Rajya Sabha election.
- Voting is by single transferable vote, as the election is held on the principle of proportional representation.
- A single transferable vote means electors can vote for any number of candidates in order of their preference. A candidate requires a specified number of first preference votes to win
- This is to avoid the principle of majority, which would mean that only candidates put up by ruling parties in the respective States will be elected.
- Candidates fielded by political parties have to be proposed by at least 10 members of the Assembly or 10% of the party’s strength in the House, whichever is less. For independents, there should be 10 proposers, all of whom should be members of the Assembly.
Why is there no secret ballot in the Rajya Sabha elections?
- The Rajya Sabha polls have a system of open ballot, but it is a limited form of openness.
- As a measure to check rampant cross-voting, which was taken to mean that the vote had been purchased by corrupt means, the system of each party MLA showing his or her marked ballots to the party’s authorised agent, before they are put into the ballot box, has been introduced.
- Showing a marked ballot to anyone other than one’s own party’s authorised agent will render the vote invalid. Not showing the ballot to the authorised agent will also mean that the vote cannot be counted.
- And independent candidates are barred from showing their ballots to anyone.
- However, party whip is not applicable here.
- Why does not ‘None of the Above’, or NOTA, apply to the Rajya Sabha polls?
- In 2018, the Supreme Court of India struck down the provision, holding that the ‘none of the above’ option is only for general elections held on the basis of universal adult suffrage, and cannot be applied to indirect elections based on proportional representation.