New Delhi: Biennial elections to fill four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir, lying vacant since 2021, will be held on October 24, the Election Commission said on Wednesday.
While announcing the schedule, the EC said that the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir (with legislature) and Ladakh (without legislature).
As per the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, four sitting members of the Rajya Sabha representing the existing State of Jammu and Kashmir will be deemed to have been elected to fill the seats allocated to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
For the four Upper House seats from Jammu and Kashmir, the notification will be announced on October 6. The last date of filing nomination would be October 13, while the nominations can be withdrawn by October 16.
The terms of Ghulam Nabi Azad, Shamsher Singh Manhas, Nazir Ahmad Laway, and Fayaz Ahmad Mir – the four Rajya Sabha MPs- ended in February 2021.
The elections for these seats could not be conducted earlier as Jammu and Kashmir was under President’s rule untill October 2024. Now that the Union Territory has an elected assembly, the poll panel announced the dates for the Rajya Sabha polls.
The last Rajya Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir were held in February 2015, when the BJP-PDP alliance won three seats and the NC-Congress alliance bagged one. The ruling national conference has been raising the issue of vacant Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir.
Aam Admi Party (AAP) leader Sanjeev Arora resigned from Rajya Sabha on July 1, 2025, after he won the assembly bypoll to the Ludhiana West constituency in Punjab. Arora’s term was supposed to end in April 2028.
