Rajya Sabha (RS) is the upper house of the Indian Parliament, and unlike The Lower House (Lok Sabha) that is dissolved every 5 years, RS never gets dissolved.
When the constitution was adopted in 1949, RS was to consist 217 members, 205 out of which were to be filled through elections and 12 through nomination by the President.
205 were divided among states based on the-then state-population figures as per the census, using the formula: “One seat per million for the first five millions and one seat for every additional two millions or part thereof exceeding one million.”
While the 12 President-nominated seats remain intact, the number of 205 has now moved to 238; the change has been on account of reorganisation of states & creation of new states and not on the formula as defined above.
These 238 members are elected by Members of Legislative Assembly – MLAs, who are elected by people at state level through ballot.
Each state has a number of allocated seats in Rajya Sabha and MLAs of a particular state can vote only if one or more retiring-members are from that state.
E.g., Uttar Pradesh has an allocation of 31 seats in Rajya Sabha; if any member(s) from those 31 seats are retiring, only then MLAs of Uttar Pradesh will vote.
Each member of RS is elected for a term of 6 years but 1/3rd of its members retire every 2 years; all members having a term of 6 years and yet 1/3rd retiring every 2 years can be tricky to understand and has been explained below.
For the ease of calculation, let’s say there were 99 RS members in 1952, when the first session was held; <1-33>, <34-66>, <67-99>
<1-33> were asked to retire compulsorily in 1954 and were replaced by a new group of 33 (let’s call this Group A); in 1956, <34-66> were asked to retire compulsorily and were replaced by another new 33 (Group B).
In 1958, <67-99> retired automatically, having finished 6 years & were replaced by Group C (33).
In 1960, Group A i.e. 1/3rd of the members retired after 6 years (1954-1960); in 1962, Group B i.e. 1/3rd retired after 6 years (1956-1962) and Group C retired after 6 years in 1964.
Since then, this cycle has continued with the exceptions of death or resignation, where elections are held before the completion of a member’s term.
Part 2 will cover the voting process and the calculation of votes.
