Polling for 37 seats of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, is scheduled to take place in about two weeks’ time, and the big question being asked now is, of the three Maha Vikas Aghadi parties—the Congress, the NCP (SP), and the Shiv Sena (UBT)—who is entitled to get the lone Rajya Sabha seat?
There is hectic activity within the MVA to secure the seat, as Uddhav Thackeray has specifically said that he wants it, while the Congress party from New Delhi has staked its claim over it, saying they would compensate the Shiv Sena (UBT) in some way were they to give up their claim. There is much tussle and bargaining going on between the MVA partners, and many are asking whether this will eventually put stress on the unity of the alliance.
The Rajya Sabha elections are scheduled on March 16, 2026. Rajya Sabha has a total of 245 seats, making it arguably a sizeable number in the overall strength of the House. This year, the Rajya Sabha polls will happen in three phases—on March 16, for 37 seats; on June 24, for 24 seats; and on November 11, for 11 seats. Clearly, the March 16 polls are the largest of the lot.
The MVA is sure to win one seat in Maharashtra, as the required strength of the MLAs is 37 members per Rajya Sabha seat. In other words, any alliance which wants to contest the Rajya Sabha (RS) polls has to have a quota of 37 MLAs voting for its candidate to ensure his/her victory. The MVA currently has that strength in the state assembly. But Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, which has a strength of 20 in the state assembly, feels that since they have most of the 37 seats that are needed to secure victory, they should get the seat. The buzz inside the Shiv Sena (UBT) is that Priyaka Chaturvedi as well as Ambadas Danve are the contenders for this single seat that falls in the MVA quota. The Sena is keen that all MVA partners agree on the Sena getting this seat so that they continue to have two MPs in Rajya Sabha, including Sanjay Raut, who is also the Shiv Sena spokesperson.
However, the Congress has other ideas. The Congress has a different perspective in mind. Firstly, the Congress feels that Maharashtra is an important state for their overall political strategy, as it did well in the last Lok Sabha polls in the state; and secondly, the Congress party has to retain its strength of 25 in the Rajya Sabha so that they can continue to hold the Leader of Opposition position in the RS. With 245 seats in the House, as per the Rajya Sabha rules, any party aspiring for the Leader of Opposition position must have at least 10% of the seats. While the Congress party currently has 27 seats, in the coming months many of its members, such as party national president Mallikarjun Kharge, will reach the end of their term in the House. So, in order to retain its strength (anything above 25) in the RS, the Congress party feels that it should get the seat from the Maharashtra quota, which it can surely secure if the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP) support it. Sources close to the Congress party leadership have indicated, though the information is still unconfirmed, that the party may offer some kind of an exchange to Uddhav Thackeray in terms of offering him one or two seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council in the coming months.
Now the two factors that nobody has discussed as yet are still to come into play! First, there is speculation about what senior leader and NCP founder Sharad Pawar thinks about all this. Questions are being asked about whether Sharad Pawar, who ends his RS term in April, may want to continue in the House of seniors for another term. Sharad Pawar, who will be turning 85 this year, has given indications previously that he might be headed towards retirement from active politics, but with the sudden death of his nephew, NCP president Ajit Pawar, things may have changed inside the two factions of the NCP. If Sharad Pawar announces that he wants to continue in the RS, the whole equation changes, and all members of the MVA will agree that the seat should go to him, but if he decides to retire from active politics, it will be a different matter altogether. The second factor is cross-voting, which was seen in previous elections. What if the ruling BJP is able to engineer some cross-voting from the MVA side and field an additional candidate in their quota? Nobody has factored this in yet. Generally, the Rajya Sabha elections are lacklustre; they just happen as a matter of formality, but this time, in the first half of 2026, the RS polls may witness some political drama and may change some equations in Maharashtra's politics.
Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune.
