Nitish Bows Out, BJP Eyes Bihar, India’s Upper House in Political Flux

Thirty-seven seats. Ten states. One deadline . As nominations closed on March 5 for India's biennial Rajya Sabha elections, the country's political parties revealed not just their candidates but their calculations, who to reward, who to sideline, which alliances to honour and which ambitions to quietly bury. But nothing cut through the noise quite like the sight of Bihar's longest-serving chief minister walking into a room, filing a nomination paper, and walking out of power forever. From that corridor in Patna to the Tamil Nadu alliance table, from Odisha's delicate vote arithmetic to a surprise pick in the mountains of Himachal, the Upper House elections of 2026 have turned into a masterclass in Indian political strategy . The Election Commission has set polling for March 16 between 9 am and 4 pm, with counting commencing at 5 pm the same day. Of the 37 seats at stake, 12 are currently held by the NDA and 25 by the opposition , making this round a pivotal contest for the balance of power in Parliament's Upper House.

Bihar delivered the defining moment of this election season. Nitish Kumar , chief minister since 2005 and the longest-serving CM in India, stunned the nation by filing his Rajya Sabha nomination in Patna alongside BJP national president Nitin Nabin , in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah , effectively surrendering the state's top post after two decades. The NDA commands 202 of the 243 assembly seats , making the election of all five NDA candidates, Kumar, Nabin, BJP state general secretary Shivesh Kumar, JD(U)'s Ram Nath Thakur, and RLM's Upendra Kushwaha, a foregone conclusion. Kumar's departure now paves the way for Bihar to get its first-ever BJP chief minister , the only remaining Hindi heartland state where the party has not yet held the top post. Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary and Union MoS Nityanand Rai are among the names circling for the chair. The Congress called it "a leadership coup and a huge betrayal of the people's mandate," while the BJP had, just a day earlier, dismissed the very same rumours as a "Holi prank." The JD(U), meanwhile, braces for a diminished future, a party insider admitting quietly that "things are never going to be the same again for us."

In Maharashtra, where seven seats are at stake , the ruling Mahayuti alliance, with over 230 MLAs in the 288-member assembly, is set to sweep six seats, fielding BJP's Vinod Tawde and Ramdas Athawale among four candidates, alongside NCP's Parth Pawar and Shiv Sena's Jyoti Waghmare . The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, after days of bitter internal wrangling with all three allies staking claim to the single seat the bloc can win, finally rallied behind 85-year-old NCP (SP) patriarch Sharad Pawar . In Odisha, the BJP is backing veteran independent Dilip Ray , a former minister under three Prime Ministers, in a high-stakes bid for a fourth seat against BJD's Dr. Datteswar Hota, with Congress alleging horse-trading and Ray himself saying cryptically, "Wait for some days, you will know everything."

Tamil Nadu saw the DMK anchor a tight alliance bloc, nominating sitting MP Tiruchi Siva and party spokesperson J. Constantine Ravindran while allotting seats to Congress and DMDK, as the AIADMK fielded senior parliamentarian M. Thambidurai and allotted its second seat to PMK's Anbumani Ramadoss , both expected to win without contest. In West Bengal, the TMC turned heads with a bold four-member slate of minister Babul Supriyo , former DGP Rajeev Kumar , constitutional lawyer Menaka Guruswamy , and film star Koel Mallick , while the BJP's Rahul Sinha fills the fifth seat. Himachal Pradesh offered its own surprise when Congress bypassed senior heavyweights, including Union minister Anand Sharma and former state Congress president Pratibha Singh, to nominate Kangra DCC chief Anurag Sharma , a grassroots worker seen as a quiet reward for a district that delivered 10 assembly seats yet received little recognition in return. In Chhattisgarh, BJP's OBC leader Laxmi Verma and Congress's tribal incumbent Phulo Devi Netam filed papers for one seat each, while Haryana added late drama as Independent Satish Nandal , backed by three MLAs, entered the race alongside BJP's Sanjay Bhatia and Congress's Karamvir Singh Boudh. Assam's BJP fielded Jogen Mohan and Terash Gowalla for two of three seats, and Telangana sees Congress renominate Supreme Court lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi alongside CM advisor Vem Narender Reddy .

Thirty-seven seats will be filled. Familiar faces will return, new ones will arrive, and a few surprises will take their oaths in the weeks ahead. But the questions that this season has raised will outlast the results, Who leads Bihar now? Can the opposition find its voice again? And how long before the next 37 seats remind us, all over again, that in this country, the only thing predictable about politics is that it never stays predictable?