New Delhi: The BJP, which rules in 18 states, will have an advantage in getting its nominees elected to the Rajya Sabha as the term of over 70 members would end over the next few months. At present, BJP is the single largest party in the Rajya Sabha with 97 members while ally Janata Dal-United has 4. Former ally Shiromani Akali Dal has 3.
Against this, the Congress has 33, Trinamool Congress 13, DMK 10, CPI-M 6, NCP 4, RJD 5, SP 5, Shiv Sena 3, TRS 6, and YSRCP 6 members in the upper house. As many as 11 seats are falling vacant in Uttar Pradesh and 1 in Uttarakhand, where the BJP has been able to retain power and would do better than main opposition SP and Congress respectively.
In Punjab, 7 Rajya Sabha seats will fall vacant and the ruling AAP with 92/117 MLAs is likely to get 6 out of them. Hence, its tally would go up from 3 to 9. The Congress, which has 18 lawmakers in Punjab, will get 1 Rajya Sabha seat. Polls have been announced for the 5 seats from Punjab. The members whose tenure is ending are Partap Singh Bajwa and Samsher Singh Dullo from Congress, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Naresh Gujral from Shiromani Akali Dal, and Shwait Malik from BJP.
The term of two more RS members from Punjab Balwinder Singh Bhunder from SAD and Ambika Soni from Congress will end in July. The SAD has 3 MLAs while the BJP has just 2 in Punjab. Hence, they won’t get any seats. Around 20 RS seats will fall vacant in June, 33 in July, and 2 in August. Already, 1 seat each is vacant from Bihar and Karnataka. Here again, the JD-U-BJP alliance in Bihar and BJP in Karnataka would have an advantage.
Karnataka members Jairam Ramesh of Congress and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman are retiring in June. Similarly, Vivek Tankha of Congress and MJ Akbar of BJP are retiring as members of Madhya Pradesh, which is under BJP rule. The BJP may also get an advantage in Himachal Pradesh where Congress member Anand Sharma is retiring in April, in Assam where Congress members Ripun Bora and Ranee Narah are retiring in April and in Tripura, where CPI-M member Jharna Das Baidya is retiring.
However, the BJP may not get the same advantage in Maharashtra which is under the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition as 6 members including P Chidambaram of Congress, union minister Piyush Goyal, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe of BJP, Sanjay Raut of Shiv Sena and Praful Patel of NCP are retiring in July. The BJP may get 2 seats from Rajasthan, which is under Congress rule, from where four members, including OP Mathur, KJ Alphons, and Ram Kumar Verma of BJP are retiring in July.
The six seats falling vacant in Tamil Nadu will see the ruling DMK and Congress coalition getting most of them. Besides the elected members, the term of six of the seven nominated members, including Subramaniam Swamy, MC Mary Kom, Swapan Dasgupta, and Rupa Ganguly will end in April while Sambhaji Chhatrapati will complete his term in May.
