The year 2026 is going to be full of election activities. A major change is also expected in the upper house of the Parliament in 2026. Assembly elections are to be held in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam next year, while elections will also be held on about 75 Rajya Sabha seats. These seats will be vacant in April, June and November. It remains to be seen what will be the equation between NDA and INDIA alliance in Rajya Sabha after these elections. In the coming months, five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar and 10 from Uttar Pradesh will be vacant. Apart from this, seats from Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu as well as several northeastern states will also be vacant.
The tenure of these prominent leaders is ending:
Rajya Sabha elections in 2026 will be very important. These will decide the future legislative agenda of the Parliament. Prominent leaders whose tenure is ending in 2026 include Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, Digvijay Singh, Sharad Pawar and Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri, B.L. Verma, Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian. At this time it is difficult to say how many of these leaders will return to the House and how many will be replaced by new faces.
Five seats from Bihar will be vacant between April and June and again in November. These seats will become vacant in April itself. Apart from this, the tenure of MPs from Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu is also ending. Uttar Pradesh seats will also be vacant in November. Many seats in Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh will also be vacant.
At present, the NDA has 129 seats in the Rajya Sabha, while the opposition parties have only 78 MPs. The 2026 elections may change the balance of power in the Rajya Sabha. Apart from this, assembly elections will also bring changes in the strategies of political parties. All five seats of Bihar will become vacant on April 9. The terms of RJD’s Prem Chand Gupta and Amarendra Dhari Singh, JDU’s Harivansh Narayan Singh, and Union ministers Ramnath Thakur, as well as Upendra Kushwaha are ending in April.
After NDA’s landslide victory in Bihar Assembly elections, it is likely that both BJP and JDU will get two seats each. Apart from Upendra Kushwaha, some other leaders may also return to Rajya Sabha. Elections for seven Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra are also expected to be held in April. The tenure of Sharad Pawar, Priyanka Chaturvedi and Union Minister Ramdas Athawale is also about to end.
