The Bharatiya Janata Party’s strength in Rajya Sabha went down to 86 after four nominated members who were part of the party retired on Saturday while the National Democratic Alliance came to 101 seats. The 245-member Upper House has a current strength of 226 due to 19 vacancies.
Rakesh Sinha, Ram Shakal, Sonal Mansingh, and Mahesh Jethmalani completed their term on Saturday. All four outgoing MPs were chosen as non-aligned members by President Droupadi Murmu on the advice of the BJP and formally allied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government afterwards.
With this, the current strength of the ruling alliance has gone below the majority mark of 113. But it can still get key legislation passed in the House with the support of seven non-aligned members, two Independents, and friendly parties such as AIADMK (4) and YSRCP (11) during the upcoming budget session.
The President nominates 12 members to the Upper House on the recommendation of the Centre. In the current House, seven such MPs have kept themselves non-aligned (not part of BJP) but such members have been taking the side of the governing party in passing any resolution or legislation.
However, it is crucial for the ruling alliance that the vacancies under the nominated category are filled at the earliest to reduce the alliance’s dependence on others.
The current House has 19 vacancies including four each from J&K and nominated category, and 11 from eight different states (two each from Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra, and one each from Haryana, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura).
Of the 11 seats, 10 got vacant last month due to Lok Sabha elections while one was due after Bharat Rashtra Samithi member K Keshava Rao joined Congress.
The Opposition’s INDIA bloc currently holds 87 seats in the Upper House of which the Congress has 26 while Trinamool Congress has 13. Aam Aadmi Party and the DMK, in power in Delhi and Tamil Nadu, have 10 each.
