NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA is just three seats short of the majority in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament. With elections for 56 Rajya Sabha seats this month, the BJP alone has moved closer to 100.
Overall, the party managed to win 30 out of 56 seats in this round of elections, taking its score in the Upper House to 97 and that of the NDA to 118. For the Congress-led opposition, the minority position in the Rajya Sabha will push them into a corner.
The NDA will be just four steps away from the majority mark of 121 in the 240-member House (Rajya Sabha). At present BJP remains the largest party in Rajya Sabha. It has 97 members in Rajya Sabha. These also include 6 nominated MPs. However, NDA is still not in majority and is 4 less than 121 members i.e. 117 seats for majority in Rajya Sabha.
Earlier this month, candidates were elected unopposed on 41 out of 56 seats. Voting took place on 15 seats in three states on Tuesday. The BJP gained two additional seats due to cross-voting by Congress and Samajwadi Party MLAs. One in Congress ruled Himachal Pradesh and one in Uttar Pradesh.
The majority figure in the 245-member Upper House is 123. However, five seats are currently vacant, four of them in Jammu and Kashmir, which is under President’s rule, and one in the nominated member category. Due to this, the number of members of the House has also reduced to 240 and the majority figure has come down to 121. With BJP’s dominance in the Lok Sabha, numerical strength in the Rajya Sabha has become crucial for passing bills.
As of 2019, several bills – including the land reforms and triple talaq bills of 2017 and 2018. Although the Land Reforms Bill was not re-introduced, the government proceeded to pass a bill against triple talaq in its second term. After 2019, despite not having the majority, the NDA government managed to get important bills passed. Which includes abrogation of Article 370, abolition of Triple Talaq, Delhi Service Bill etc. This was also possible because Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal and Andhra Pradesh’s YSR Congress played a neutral role during the passage of the law. ,
Elections were held on Tuesday for 56 Rajya Sabha seats across the country. Of these, candidates were elected unopposed on a large number of seats (41), but elections had to be held for 15 seats in three states, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. Out of these 56 seats, BJP won 30 seats, out of which 20 were elected unopposed, while 10 were won through elections. BJP won 8 seats in Uttar Pradesh and one seat each in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka.
Of the 56 Rajya Sabha seats for which elections were held, 10 seats were from Uttar Pradesh, 6 seats each from Maharashtra and Bihar, 5 seats each from West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, 4 seats each from Gujarat and Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, There were three seats each from Telangana, Rajasthan and Odisha and 1 seat each from Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. In this, BJP candidates won on 8 out of 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh and Samajwadi Party candidates won on 2 seats.
In Maharashtra, BJP won three seats, Congress one, NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) one seat and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) one seat. Out of 6 seats in Bihar, 2 MPs from BJP, 1 from JDU, 1 from Congress and 2 from RJD won. In West Bengal, TMC won 4 and BJP won one. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP won 4 seats and Congress won one seat. In Gujarat, BJP won all four seats, while in Karnataka, BJP won one and Congress won three seats.
While YSRCP got all three seats in Andhra Pradesh, Congress got two and BRS one seat in Telangana. In Rajasthan, Congress won one seat and BJP won two seats unopposed. From Odisha, BJP got 1 seat and BJD got 2 seats. BJP won one seat each from Uttarakhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Out of 240 MPs of Rajya Sabha, 30 MPs are not in any camp. Of these 30 MPs, maximum are 9 each from YSRCP and BJD, 7 from BRS, 3 from AIADMK, 1 from TDP and 1 from BSP. Of these, BJD-YSRCP MPs are mostly seen with the government on issues. This is the reason that despite the figure of four seats being less than the majority in Rajya Sabha, no work of the government stops.

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