Before I discuss the day before yesterday’s Rajya Sabha elections, which took place in Odisha, Bihar, and Haryana, and the results of three states for 11 seats as per my expectations, there was an elephant in the room. I will tell you all about it in the next paragraph, but first, let me say that while it is true that some politicians continue to do politics based on plus, minus, and ‘it’, I have been passionate about politics since 1996, even though I am not a politician. Because of this, I firmly believe that politics is founded on five rules: honesty, a politician’s honest principles or ideology of a political party, discipline, #helpfulness, and strong personal #character.
Additionally, honest politicians should always abide by five principles when they are members of any political party. These standards serve the interests of the country and promote the expansion and solid reputation of the political party to which they belong.
Additionally, since I am a political journalist who is passionate about politics and runs the only weekly political magazine in the world, politicians who do not adhere to the five rules (I have mentioned in the opening paragraph) have no right to stay in active politics.
Therefore, to promote five rules in politics for the national interest, I have started National Political Mirror. Well, I am aware of a few of them, including how and why they get together while disregarding the party’s ideology, but I will expose them for national interest when the time is right because I am walking slowly while using the tortoise strategy rather than the rabbit strategy.
Additionally, if I do not walk slowly, I run the risk of falling and becoming exhausted, which would prevent me from ever succeeding in promoting honest politics through National Political Mirror, the only independent media house in India and the only weekly political magazine in the world.
Let’s get right to the point: in Odisha, it was anticipated that a few Congress MLAs would back BJP candidate Dilip Ray. On March 4, I tweeted that BJD would receive its second seat if the party didn’t put forth a significant effort to win the second seat. As a result, BJP received its second seat as both Congress and BJD MLAs voted for BJP’s candidate Dilip Ray.
In the Odisha Rajya Sabha elections for four seats, a candidate needed 30 votes to win a seat. In the 147-member state assembly, the BJP has 79 MLAs and three independents, leaving it with 22 excess votes after ensuring the victory of its two candidates. This meant Dilip Ray, the BJP-backed Independent, needed eight more votes to reach the winning total of 30.
After two of its lawmakers were suspended on January 15, the BJD now had 48 MLAs. There are fourteen MLAs in the Congress and one in the CPI(M). The BJD had eighteen extra votes after guaranteeing its candidate’s win. With the backing of 18 BJD MLAs, 14 Congress MLAs, and one CPI(M) member—three more than the necessary number—Dr. Datteswar Hota was predicted to winin this scenario.
But according to reports, Dilip Ray’s unexpected triumph was made possible by the votes of eight MLAs from the BJD and three from the Congress. Manmohan Samal and Sujeet Santrupt Kumar of the BJP each received 35 first-preference votes, while Misra of the BJD received 31. Additionally, Dilip Ray was proclaimed the victor based on second-preference votes even though Datteswar Hota and Dilip Ray each received 23 first-preference votes.
Among the BJD MLAs who reportedly backed Ray were Debi Ranjan Tripathy, Souvic Biswal, Chakramani Kanhar, Subasini Jena, Naba Kishor Mallick and Ramakant Bhoi, along with suspended MLAs Arabinda Mohapatra and Sanatan Mahakud. From the Congress side, Sofia Firdous, Dasarathi Gamang and Ramesh Chandra Jena were among those reported to have voted for Dilip Ray.
It’s interesting to note that Dilip Ray, a seasoned politician from Odisha, was also elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 through cross-voting. Furthermore, even though Dilip Ray was elected as an independent candidate in the Rajya Sabha in 2002, his victory had no effect on the growth of the BJD or Naveen Patnaik.
Similarly, BJP candidate Dilip Ray won the polls the day before yesterday, but his victory enabled the BJD to get closer to 9A Kotla Marg, 10 Janpath Road, and 24 Akbar Road, and the BJD is likely to join forces with the Congress. And the win of BJP’s candidate Dilip Ray benefits BJD chairman and former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who awoke after 11 years and has always supported the BJP in both houses of parliament for passing key bills, as well as helped the BJP’s candidate #AshwaniVaishnav send Rajya Sabha members between 2014 and 2024. From 2009 until 2024, Naveen Patnaik stood with the BJP whenever he received a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
However, during the 2009 Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly elections, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) broke its 11-year alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when seat-sharing talks between the two parties failed. The two parties had jointly contested the Lok Sabha elections in 1998, 1999, and 2004, winning the majority in each, as well as two assembly elections in 2000 and 2004, forming successive coalition governments for the second time.
Second, I was aware that a few Congress MLAs in Haryana would vote for the BJP’s candidate because they had been in regular contact with Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini due to their (few Congress MLAs) work in recent months, but I was unaware that the #INLD would boycott the Rajya Sabha elections. So, despite the fact that Congress MLAs voted for the BJP candidate, Congress nominee Karamvir Singh Boudh won the Rajya Sabha election during the late-night counting yesterday.
However, there was a catch in the March 16 Haryana Rajya Sabha polls, as the counting of ballots was delayed due to complaints submitted by both parties.Five more votes, four from the Congress and one from the BJP, were declared invalid, while five Congress MLAs voted for BJP-backed independent candidate Satish Nandal rather than the party’s official nominee Karamveer Boudh.This left 83 valid votes in play. Under the single transferable vote method, the winning quota was 27.67 votes.
The BJP’s Sanjay Bhatia received 39 first-preference votes and easily exceeded the threshold, with his surplus going to Satish Nandal. Karamveer Boudh received 28 first-preference votes. Satish Nandal accumulated 27.33 points, which included his 16 first-preference votes and Bhatia’s transferred surplus. The difference between Satish Nandal and Karamveer Boudh was just 0.67 of a vote.
Third, the RJD candidate, often known as the Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan), did not win. In the #Bihar Rajya Sabha elections, Grand Alliance candidate Amarendra Dhari Singh (AD Singh) lost due to greedy lawmakers from both Congress and RJD. Three Congress MLAs and one RJD MLA did not participate for silly reasons.
However, according to reliable sources, all three Congress MLAs were in #Chhattisgarh when voting was taking place in Bihar’s Patan to elect five Rajya Sabha members.
However, I believe that Rajesh Kumar, the state president of Bihar, and Krishna Allavaru, the Congressman in charge of Bihar, are also to blame for Amarendra Dhari Singh’s defeat in the Rajya Sabha elections. Rahman is the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA for the Dhaka assembly constituency (Purvi Champaran) in Bihar, but Faisal Rahman started his political career in the Janata Dal (United) while running in the 2010 Bihar Legislative Assembly election from the Dhaka constituency in the East Champaran district.
The maths was simple: in order to get a Rajya Sabha seat in Bihar, a candidate needed the backing of at least 41 MLAs. With 202 MLAs in the 243-member assembly, the NDA is three votes away from winning the fifth seat.
With 35 MLAs—RJD (25), Congress (6), left parties (3), and the Indian Inclusive Party (1)—the Mahagathbandhan’s candidate, A D Singh, fell short by six votes. However, after the AIMIM (5) and BSP (1) offered their support, raising the total to 41, the opposition candidate was still anticipated to win. However, in an anticlimax, four opposition MLAs — three from the Congress and one from the RJD — did not show up to vote.
All NDA MLAs voted, and the four NDA nominees each received more than 41 votes to claim their seats. Shivesh Ram received 30 first-preference votes and A D Singh received 37 for the fifth seat, hence second-preference votes were used. These votes are counted when no candidate receives the necessary number of votes — at least 41 in this case — in the first round. The BJP candidate eventually won by a significant margin.Forbesganj MLA Manoj Vishwas, Valmiki Nagar MLA Surendra Kushwaha, and Manihari MLA Mamohar Prasad were the three Congress MLAs who did not vote. Faisal Rahman, the RJD MLA from Dhaka, did not show up.
According to the reports, they remained out of reach of party managers throughout the day, with their cell phones switched off.Thus, on March 16, 2026, National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won all five seats in the Bihar Rajya Sabha elections. Winners included Nitish Kumar (JD-U), Ramnath Thakur (JD-U), Nitin Nabin (BJP), Shivesh Ram (BJP), and Upendra Kushwaha (RLM), handing the Congress and RJD a defeat.
I would like to conclude by stating that the Odisha Congress has taken strong action against MLAs who voted against the party’s decision and voted for BJP’s Dilip Ray. It is now time for the Haryana Congress, Bihar Congress, RJD, and BJD to take strong action against those MLAs who betrayed their party in the day before yesterday’s Rajya Sabha polls or went against party lines to prevent internal politics and breaking party lines from happening again. If they do not act now against those who oppose party decisions, they will continue to do so immediately before any polls, and don’t forget that the 2029 Lok Sabha Elections will be held in the next 36 months.
