The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faced a setback in the Rajya Sabha as four of its members completed their term on July 13, resulting in a decline in its strength for the first time in several years.
The outgoing members—Sonal Mansingh, Mahesh Jethmalani, Rakesh Sinha, and Ram Shakal—were nominated by President Droupadi Murmu as non-aligned members on the advice of the ruling party. They had been staunch supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government during their tenure.
With their departure, the BJP’s tally in the upper house now stands at 86 seats, thereby reducing the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) strength to 101 seats. This number falls short of the current majority mark of 113 in the 245-member House.
The BJP-led NDA is expected to secure additional seats to compensate for this loss. They anticipate winning two seats each in Bihar, Maharashtra, and Assam, along with one seat each in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Tripura, leveraging their numerical advantage over the opposition.
The four newly nominated members, once appointed by the government, are also expected to align with the treasury benches. While nominated members typically maintain independence in the House regarding party affiliation, they traditionally support the government’s agenda.
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Currently, there are 19 vacancies in the Rajya Sabha, with the Congress eyeing the lone seat in Telangana, albeit facing competition from the Bharatiya Rashtriya Shakti (BRS) party. Meanwhile, the BJP is poised to gain a seat in Rajasthan, previously held by senior Congress leader K C Venugopal, who won the Lok Sabha election from Alappuzha, Kerala.
In Haryana, the BJP anticipates winning the vacant seat left by its Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Singh Hooda, who was elected to the Lok Sabha. The Congress, however, is optimistic about attracting support from independent and regional party MLAs ahead of the upcoming assembly polls in October.
The Election Commission (EC) is yet to announce the election dates to fill the 11 vacancies caused by resignations, with ten members moving to the Lok Sabha and one, K Keshava Rao of the BRS, joining the Congress.
Out of the total 19 vacancies in the 245-member Rajya Sabha, four are from Jammu and Kashmir, where there is currently no legislative assembly following the region’s reorganization into a Union Territory in 2019.