Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat are coming near and nowadays news channels are continuously flashing news regarding 3 seats to be refilled in Rajya Sabha and the tensions emerging for congress senior Ahmed Patel. We shall understand how the elections for Rajya Sabha takes place and who are eligible for this post.
Lok-sabha and Rajya-sabha are known as bicameral legislature where bicameral legislature means bi is 2 and cameral means house and legislature means law, so bicameral means 2 houses which makes law.
RAJYA SABHA
We can address Rajya sabha using 3 different name
- Upper house
- Permanent House (As it never gets dissolve)
- Council of states (As it represents the state in union legislature)
According to the constitution, there are total 250 seats of Rajya Sabha but currently, there are 245 seats. Out of 250 seats, 238 are elected indirectly and 12 seats are for those who are nominated by the president and belong to a special field or are have expertise practical knowledge in fields like literature, science, social service and arts. At present 233 seats are are available for indirect election out of which 2 seats are vacant.
Example of 1 among 12 nominated by the president is sachin tendulkar in the field of arts as sports is included in arts.
Example of 1 among 12 nominated by the president is sachin tendulkar in the field of arts as sports is included in arts.
Term Of Office : Term of office for Rajya sabha members is of 6 years. Rajya sabha never gets dissolved . That is all the members of rajya sabha do not get retire all togather , but a 1/3rd member from each state get after 2 years completing their 6 years tenure.
Example : Smriti irani , ahmed shah and dilip pandya are completing their 6 year term of the rajya sabha. so 3 of them are going to retire and gujarat have 11 seats in rajya sabha so 1/3(11) ~ 3 retires every 2 years .
After 2 years -> 1/3 rd members are new and 2/3 are old.
After next 2 years, ie 4th years -> 2/3rd members are new and 1/3 are old.
Again after next 2 years ->ie 6th year->All members are new
So In rajya sabha, The members do not retire all togather after 6 years but 1/3 members retire at an interval of 2 years so at end of six years all new members replace old members.
After 2 years -> 1/3 rd members are new and 2/3 are old.
After next 2 years, ie 4th years -> 2/3rd members are new and 1/3 are old.
Again after next 2 years ->ie 6th year->All members are new
So In rajya sabha, The members do not retire all togather after 6 years but 1/3 members retire at an interval of 2 years so at end of six years all new members replace old members.
Interesting Fact : First time when 1/3rd members had to retire after 2 years lucky draw was done to decide who will retire after 2 years , 4years and 6 year .
Qualification :
Yes, you are eligible if you fulfil Following conditions:
- If your age is 30+ .
- If you are a citizen of india.
- You must not hold an office of profit under the government of india i.e person must not be at any other post which provides a profit . eg Jaya bachchan was disqualified from rajya sabha as she was the chairperson of uttarpradesh film development council which was an office of profit.
- He should not be known criminal.
- He should not be under any debt which could not be repaid.
Powers :
- It can pass a resolution to increase All India service such as IAS , IPS etc to serve both state and union.
- Parliament can pass the bill for a state but only if a 2/3rd majority of rajya sabha gives authority of passing bill to parliament and without permission of rajya sabha parliament cannot pass any bill for the state.
Limitations :
Yes Loksabha is more powerful in certain aspects
- Money bills: Rajya sabha cannot amend or pass a bill without Loksabha.
- If any bill passed is rejected by either house and is no action is taken until six months than the president can call a joint meeting also known as summon in which both houses are called to discuss and as members of loksabha are more so loksabha have more influence . Chairperson of the session is speaker of loksabha
- Rajya sabha cannot give no confidence motion ie it cannot tell council of ministers to resign if they find that minister in not performing their duties rightly.
Such Joint sessions have happened only 3 times in last 69 years.
Voting Process :
Rajya sabha voting for 238 members is done indirectly that is people do not vote for them but our representatives that is MLA (member of legislative assembly ) vote for them . The voting process is done using a system called single transferable vote. Now you all might be aware of this method as president elections held recently also use this system . We will discuss about this system . This year ie 2017 Rajya sabha elections are going to be held for 3 states Gujarat , Goa and West bengal .
What is Single Transferrable vote ?
Single transferable vote is a voting system in which preference is to be given to all candidates standing for election. With this method, the votes do not get wasted. All the eligible voters give preference to all candidates , it is not necessary to rank all the candidate but each member must vote or give its first preference to one of the candidate . Nowadays NOTA option is applicable in india .We will understand the whole process with an example
Example : There are 4 candidates standing for election. Each eligible voter is given preference card in which all candidates name are mentioned and against it, each voter have to write a number as 1,2,3 and 4 not necessary in order.
Now if voter v1 Gives 1st preference to Candidate A so he will checkmark under 1, his second choice is C, the third choice is D and the 4th choice is B so he will checkmark against each name respectively.
so after counting, if any candidate gets 51 or more than 51 votes is a winner .
If no one gets minimum vote required than the second counting is done, In second counting the candidate having least number of vote is removed and the second preference of voters who gave the first choice to the removed person is checked
and the total count is distributed among those candidate
Now here B have 15 so he is out of the race and those who gave him 1st choice have given 2nd choice to A and C so his 15 votes are divided among A and C.
Even if the candidate is have more votes than required than his excess votes are given to the candidate who is in second preference to choose the second winner.
In this elections vote value of the vote of each MLA is found out .The value of Vote of each MLA is calculated by a formula :
Value = (Population of gujarat in 1971 / No. of MLA in gujarat state )/ 1000
So Value of vote of 1 MLA = ( 26697475/182)/1000
= 146.69
~ 147
And each candidate needs to have minimum votes to win
Minimum vote =( No. of MLA / NO. of vacant seats in rajya sabha + 1)+1
= (182/3+1)+1
= 46 (FOR THIS TIME -2017 )
This time Smriti Irani , Amit shah , Ahmed patel and Balwantsinh Rajput are candidates.
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