The BJP has touched 100 seats in the Rajya Sabha becoming the first party to do so in the last three decades. The new tally comes after biennial elections to the upper house in Assam, Tripura and Nagaland in the polls held on Thursday.
In Himachal Pradesh, BJP candidate Dr Sikandar Kumar was elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha. The party now has all seats from the state in the Upper House of Parliament. S Phangnon Konyak, who is the president of BJP Nagaland unit’s Mahila Morcha, was also elected unopposed to the Upper House.
BJP Tripura president Manik Saha also won the single Rajya Sabha seat, becoming the first member of the BJP from the state in the Upper House.
The saffron party and its ally United People’s Party Liberal won the two seats in Assam which recently went to polls. For the first time, Congress will have no Rajya Sabha MP from Assam.
The BJP and NDA’s growing strength in the upper house is also likely to enable a smoother passage to the government legislation in the Parliament.
Though the BJP has touched a century, but its hold on the triple figure may be tenuous as polls to around 52 more seats will be held soon and it is expected to suffer a drop in the numbers from states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Jharkhand.
Blow to Congress
The Congress’s tally in the Rajya Sabha will shrink after the biennial elections to the Upper House. However, what is more worrying for the party is the shrinking presence of the grand old party across the states. The Congress will not have any representative in Rajya Sabha from as many as 17 states and UTs.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the party’s tally in Rajya Sabha was 33 at the end of March. Now, four members have already retired and nine more will retire in the coming months. After the recent poll to the upper house, the party’s tally will go down to 30.
What the Numbers Suggest?
The polls later this year in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and next year in Karnataka will be vital for Congress to also shore up its numbers in Rajya Sabha.
The BJP’s tally, despite way short of majority in the 245-member House, highlights its continuous rise since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led it to its majority in Lok Sabha in the 2014 polls. The BJP’s strength in Rajya Sabha was 55 in 2014 and has since steadily inched up as the party won power in a number of states.
The last time a party had 100 or more seats in the Upper House was in 1990 when the then ruling Congress had 108 members before its steady decline. Its strength in Rajya Sabha fell to 99 in the 1990 biennial polls and continued to decline as it lost a stream of states and the coalition era began and continued till 2014.
(With inputs from PTI)
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