Rajya Sabha Polls: NDA To Fall Short Of Majority Mark Even After Guaranteed Wins, Here's A Look At Numbers

Elections to 12 vacant Rajya Sabha seats in nine states will be held on September 3, and the Upper House’s strength will be 237 after the results.  As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to win 7 seats, the total tally of NDA will become 109.

Though the NDA will still be short of the majority mark, the support of six nominated members and two independents will bring its tally to 117 — just two short of the majority (119).

Support Of Non-NDA Allies Crucial

With the BJP and the NDA’s tally falling short of the majority mark, what this means is that now the government has to depend upon the support from non-NDA parties, like its former ally in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK, in Andhra Pradesh, former CM Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress and in Odisha—the BJD.

Hence, the BJP will try hard to win three more Rajya Sabha seats apart from the seven guaranteed ones. There’s likely to be a close contest in one seat of Haryana and two in Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, both Maharashtra seats are likely to go to NDA and the BJP has committed to give one of the two seats to an ally, NCP (Ajit Pawar’s party).

The opposition’s Congress also needs 25 total Upper House seats to retain the Leader Of Opposition (LoP) post. It currently is at 24 seats.

Vacant seats and election

Ten Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant as the sitting members, including Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Sarbananda Sonowal, and Jyotiraditya Scindia, were elected to the Lok Sabha.

Bypolls are also being held for two seats in Telangana and Odisha.

K Keshava Rao from Telangana resigned recently from the House after quitting the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) to join the Congress while Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP Mamata Mohanta resigned from her Rajya Sabha seat and primary membership of the party.

Besides Goyal, Sonowal and Scindia, the other Rajya Sabha members who won the parliamentary polls and moved to the Lok Sabha are Kamakhya Prasad Tasa (BJP), Misha Bharti (RJD), Vivek Thakur (BJP), Deepender Singh Hooda (Congress), Udayanraje Bhosle (BJP), K C Venugopal (Congress) and Biplab Kumar Deb (BJP).

The notification for the Rajya Sabha elections will be issued on August 14 and the last date for filing of poll papers is August 21, the commission said.

The separate elections for each Rajya Sabha seat will be held on September 3 and the results will be announced the same day.