New Delhi: Biennial elections for 25 Rajya Sabha seats in 6 states including Uttar Pradesh, WestBengal, and Karnataka, Telangana to be held today.

 Apart from this Bypoll also be held for one seat in Kerala. Counting of votes in the evening

Elections for Uttar Pradesh where Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is in the fray and confident to win the election.

58 Rajya Sabha seats are to be filled and on March 15, 33 candidates from 10 states were elected unopposed. Among them were seven union ministers including Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar. Counting of ballots will be taken up at 5 pm, just an hour after the ending of voting.

For the Rajya Sabha elections on Friday, the BJP is almost assured of 8 of the 10 seats and suspense builds upon whether it can seize an extra seat in the light of the pristine bonhomie between former arch rivals SP and BSP, who just pulled off two bypoll winnings, including the one in UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s bastion, Gorakhpur.

Five candidates are in the electoral ground in Karnataka for four seats. The state's ruling Congress has fielded three candidates, while there are one each of the BJP and JD(S). Elections will also be held for two seats in Jharkhand where three candidates are in the poll-battle, including two of the state's ruling BJP and one of the Congress. One candidate each of the ruling BJP and main opposition Congress will cross swords for the single-handed Rajya Sabha seat from Chhattisgarh. Four candidates will attempt from Telangana where polling will be held for three seats.