NEW DELHI, Feb 29: After the latest round of the Rajya Sabha elections this week, the BJP-led NDA is just three short seats of majority in the Upper House of Parliament.
With the election to 56 Rajya Sabha seats this month, the BJP has inched closer to 100. Altogether, the party managed to win 30 of the 56 seats in this round of elections, taking its score in the Upper House to 97 and the NDA to 118.
Candidates on 41 of the 56 seats had got elected unopposed earlier this month. Election was held on 15 seats across three states on Tuesday in which the BJP scooped up two extra seats — one in Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh and one in Uttar Pradesh — thanks to cross-voting by MLAs of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party in the two states respectively.
The majority mark in the 245-member Upper House is 123. However, currently five seats are vacant, four of them in Jammu and Kashmir, which has been under President’s Rule, and one in the nominated member category. This brings down the strength of the House to 240 and the majority mark to 121.
With the BJP dominating the Lok Sabha, the numbers in the Rajya Sabha have become crucial in terms of passing of bills. Till 2019, several bills — including the land reform and Triple Talaq Bills of 2017 and 2018 — got blocked by the Opposition in the Upper House. While the land reform bill was not re-introduced, the government went ahead to pass the bill against Triple Talaq in its second term.
After 2019, despite not having majority, the NDA government managed to get crucial bills — including the repealing of Article 370, abolition of triple talaq, Delhi Service bill and others — passed in the upper house with the support of neutral parties such as Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal and Andhra Pradesh’s YSR Congress.
(Manas Dasgupta)
