RAJYA SABHA ELECTIONS

-


 There are several features that distinguish elections to the Council of States, or the Upper House of Parliament, from the general elections.

Only elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies can vote in a Rajya Sabha election 

A batch of new members , is elected every two years for a term of six years. 

Rajya Sabha is a permanent house and is not subject to dissolution. 

One third of members retires from each state in every two years. 

Voting is by single transferable vote, as the election is held on the principle of proportional representation. 

The Delhi and Puducherry Assemblies elect members to the Rajya Sabha to represent the two Union Territories. 

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. 

For independents, there should be 10 proposers, all of whom should be members of the Assembly.

A single transferable vote means electors can vote for any number of candidates in order of their preference. To qualify, a candidate needs one point more than the quotient obtained by dividing the total value of the number of seats for which elections are taking place plus one. 

A candidate requires a specified number of first preference votes to win. Each first choice vote has a value of 100 in the first round. To qualify, a candidate needs one point more than the quotient obtained by dividing the total value of the number of seats for which elections are taking place plus one.

If there are 4 seats and 200 MLAs voting, the qualifying number will be 200/5= 40 votes 

The extra candidate is eliminated for want of enough first preference votes. 

So the results are clear in the first round itself. 

When more than one candidate fails to get the specified number, the second preference polled by the candidates will be transferred to their vote account.

To avoid the cross voting and other corrupt practices, the ballot has partial openness. 

A marked ballots needs to be shown to the party’s authorised agent, before they are put into the ballot box .  

The independent candidates are barred from showing their ballots to anyone.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) introduced the option to press the NOTA button to the Rajya Sabha polls, in 2014. It was struck down by the Supreme Court, in 2018 . 

According to Supreme Court, the cross voting does not attract the disqualification for the candidate. 

The voting at the Rajya Sabha polls, considered as a non-legislative activity.  





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EXTINCTION OF MEN : A MYTH OR A REALITY ?

-
Image
The Y chromosome is a never-ending source of fascination particularly to men because it bears genes that determine maleness & make sperm. It’s also small & seriously weird; it carries few genes and is full of junk DNA that makes it horrendous to sequence.  The sex of human & other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. But the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene. However two branches of rodents have already lost their Y chromosome and have survived successfully. In humans, as in other mammals, females have two X chromosomes and males have a single X and a puny little chromosome called Y. The names have nothing to do with their shape; the X stood for “unknown”. The X contains about 900 genes that do all sorts of jobs unrelated to sex. But the Y contains few genes (about 55) and a lot of non-coding DNA – simple repetitive DNA that doesn’t seem t
Read more

THE BLOOD & IRON POLICY OF BISMARCK

-
Image
Before 1848, Germany was a confederation of 38 states ruled by princes or kings. Prussia was the largest and most powerful of these states. Prussia and Austria were the two most powerful states. In 1848 the states tried to create a unified Germany, but the attempt failed.  Many Germans believed that unification could only be achieved under Prussian leadership. But the Prussian king did not want to take a crown from the hands of revolutionaries and liberals. Unification would have to be on his terms.  He appointed Otto von Bismarck to be his chief minister in 1862. Bismarck set forth a policy called “blood and iron”. Bismarck intended to use war to achieve his aims of unifying Germany. Bismarck started three wars. The Prussians fought against the Danes, the Austrians, and the French. By 1871, Germany was united. The policy of “blood and iron” had worked. Bismarck’s “Blood and Iron” Speech (1862) is one of the more famous political speeches in the history of Germany and of the world. T
Read more

DENISOVA HOMININ : - AN EXTINCT HUMAN SPECIES

-
Image
Neanderthals were very early humans who lived in Europe & Western Asia from about 400,000 years ago until they became extinct about 40,000 years ago.  Denisovans are another population of early humans who lived in Asia & were distantly related to Neanderthals. Much less is known about the Denisovans because scientists have uncovered fewer fossils of these ancient people. Research has shown that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthal and Denisovan populations for a period, and that they had children together (interbred).  As a result, many people living today have a small amount of genetic material from these distant ancestors. Svante Paabo & his team in 2008 in Germany have sequenced nearly all the genome of the Denisovan people, an extinct human-like species contemporary with the Neanderthals.  The work by the Max Planck Society's Evolutionary Anthropology Institute in Leipzig has been first time obtained full genetic data of any of the archaic hominins.  The group
Read more