The results of the elections for two Rajya Sabha seats in Jharkhand have raised new questions in the politics of the state. Despite having sufficient numerical strength in the Assembly, India Alliance could not win both its candidates. The election results indicate that there was large-scale cross-voting in this election, which directly benefited NDA-backed independent candidate Parimal Nathwani.

Jharkhand Congress in-charge K Raju alleged that RJD and CPI (ML) betrayed the party, due to which Congress candidates lost the elections. However, there has been no immediate reaction to this allegation from both the parties. All 81 MLAs exercised their franchise in the voting for two Rajya Sabha seats. In the counting of votes, JMM candidate Baijnath Ram got 31 votes and was declared victorious.

Parimal Nathwani got 30 votes, two invalid

NDA supported independent candidate Parimal Nathwani got 30 votes, out of which two votes were declared invalid. In this way, he won on the basis of 28 valid votes. Congress candidate Pranab Jha got 20 votes, out of which one vote was invalid. In Jharkhand Assembly, NDA has a total of 24 MLAs including BJP, AJSU, JDU and LJP.

Despite this, Nathwani’s tally of 30 votes is considered to be an indication that he got support from the opposition camp as well. Despite two votes being invalid, he got the required 28 votes to win. On the other hand, the India Alliance has a total of 56 MLAs, which was enough to ensure victory on both the seats. 34 MLAs of JMM, 16 of Congress, four of RJD and two of CPI (ML) are with the alliance. Despite this, Congress candidate Pranab Jha did not get the expected support and had to face defeat.

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Congress raised questions on allies

There is talk in political circles that at least seven MLAs voted apart from the alliance line. There is no official confirmation yet regarding which party’s MLAs did cross voting. After the results, Congress has started raising questions on its allies.

Political analysts believe that the results of Rajya Sabha elections have once again underlined the tradition of cross voting in Jharkhand politics. Despite having less numerical strength in the Assembly, Parimal Nathwani’s victory has indicated that political chemistry played an important role in the electoral mathematics. At the same time, the defeat of the Congress candidate has raised new questions regarding coordination and trust within the India alliance.

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NDA has won five Rajya Sabha seats of Bihar. AD Singh was a candidate from RJD but he lost. After the results, many serious allegations were made by RJD and Tejashwi Yadav. Meanwhile, now a big statement has come from JDU. While talking to the media on Tuesday (March 17, 2026), JDU spokesperson Neeraj Kumar gave a befitting reply.

Taking a dig at the results, Neeraj Kumar said, “In the Rajya Sabha elections, there has been a spectacular victory for the NDA and a shameful victory for the Grand Alliance, which was led by Tejashwi Yadav.” He further said, “They have absconded from Bihar and are accusing us that their MLAs were intimidated and threatened but they have not presented any such evidence…:”

#WATCH | Delhi: JDU leader Neeraj Kumar said on the results of Rajya Sabha elections, “In the Rajya Sabha elections, there has been a spectacular victory of the NDA and a shameful victory of the Grand Alliance, whose leader was Tejashwi Yadav. They have absconded from Bihar and are accusing us that their MLAs were intimidated and threatened… pic.twitter.com/PzRz6aXTne

— ANI_HindiNews (@AHindinews) March 17, 2026

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Factors of Tejashwi Yadav’s defeat: Neeraj Kumar

The JDU leader further said, “AAP did not allow AIMIM, a constituent of the Grand Alliance, to be its candidate and made the person with money power the candidate… Who paid the hotel bill?… As you were raising the issue of gas shortage, were the MLAs fed food cooked on a wooden stove in the hotel? Please give information about all these things…” Neeraj Kumar clearly said that Congress has said in the past too that Tejashwi Yadav is the factor of defeat.

On the other hand, on the statement of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, JDU National Executive President Sanjay Jha said, “…which MLAs came or did not come, that party should see. All our MLAs were independent…”

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The opposition has suffered a major setback in the Rajya Sabha elections. Voting for 11 Rajya Sabha seats took place on Monday (16 March 2026). During this period, voting took place on 5 seats in Bihar, 4 in Odisha and two in Haryana. In Bihar and Odisha, opposition parties were not successful in keeping their MLAs united, which benefited NDA. There were 6 candidates in the fray for 5 seats in Bihar. Of these, 5 candidates were from NDA and one candidate was from the opposition alliance Grand Alliance.

NDA won all 5 seats. The winning candidates include Nitish Kumar, Nitin Nabin, Ramnath Thakur, Upendra Kushwaha and Shivesh Ram. 41 votes were required to win the Rajya Sabha elections. NDA has 202 MLAs in the 243-member assembly, due to which it was falling short of 3 votes for the 5th seat. The Grand Alliance had 35 MLAs and needed 6 additional votes to win.

Opposition candidate AD Singh got a shock

Opposition candidate AD Singh was expected to win after the support of 5 AIMIM MLAs and one Bahujan Samaj Party MLA, but at the last moment, 4 opposition MLAs, including 3 Congress and 1 RJD MLA, did not turn up to cast their votes. After there was no decision in the first preference votes, the second preference was counted, in which BJP’s Shivesh Ram won. After this, the Grand Alliance accused BJP of intimidation and horse-trading of MLAs.

Election changed due to cross voting in Odisha

In Odisha, 5 candidates were in the fray for 4 seats and 30 votes were required for victory. Here BJP’s Manmohan Samal and Sujit Kumar won. Santrup Mishra of Biju Janata Dal was also successful in winning. The biggest upset happened when BJP-backed independent candidate Dilip Ray also won. In the 147-member assembly, BJD and Congress had enough votes to make their joint candidate Datteshwar Hota win, but 8 MLAs of BJD and 3 of Congress went against the party line and cross-voted in favor of Dilip Ray. After this, Naveen Patnaik accused BJP of horse-trading and talked about action against rebel MLAs.

BJP and Congress one seat each in Haryana

Voting was held for 2 seats in Haryana, but due to complaints of violation of voting secrecy, the counting of votes was halted for about 5 hours. In the end, Sanjay Bhatia of BJP and Karmaveer Boudh of Congress won one seat each. Independent candidate Satish Nandal had to face defeat. In the counting of votes, Sanjay Bhatia got 31 votes, Karmaveer Boudh got 28 votes and Satish Nandal got 27 votes. Congress candidate Karmaveer Boudh won by one vote.

Win unopposed on 26 seats

The Election Commission of India had last month announced elections for 37 Rajya Sabha seats from 10 states. Of these, voting was not held on 26 seats in 7 states because there was only one candidate and he was elected unopposed. These include leaders like Sharad Pawar, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Ramdas Athawale and Tiruchi Shiva.