BJP likely to gain as Congress tally down in Upper House
With 2 Congress MPs elected to LS, party’s strength comes down to 26
NEW DELHI: Even as the Congress managed to nearly double its 2019 tally of 52 seats in the Lok Sabha to 100, it has seen a fall in its numbers in Rajya Sabha after two of its members won the recently concluded general elections.
From 28, the Congress is now reduced to 26 MPs in the Upper House. However, the BJP-led NDA is set to increase its numbers in the Rajya Sabha as it will gain from the 10 vacancies that came up after the polls.
Even as the Congress is vying for the post of Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, it has barely managed to keep the position of LoP in Rajya Sabha, held currently by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge. While Congress members KC Venugopal and Deepender Hooda resigned from Rajya Sabha to contest the Lok Sabha polls, both had two more years to complete their RS terms.
According to rules, to get formal recognition in either Upper or Lower House, the concerned party must have at least 10% of the total strength of the House. A single party has to meet the 10% seat criterion. The minimum requirement for any party to hold the Leader of the Opposition post needs to have at least 25 members. However, former Lok Sabha secretary general PDT Achary says those rules are no longer valid.
The majority mark in the 245-member Rajya Sabha is 123. However, five seats are vacant: four in Jammu and Kashmir, which has been under the President’s Rule, and one in the nominated member category. Thus, the strength of the House is reduced to 240 and the majority mark to 121.
According to the latest position, with 90 members, the BJP is the single largest party. While Congress is in second place with 26 seats, Trinamool Congress is at 13 and YSR Congress at 11.
A total of 10 vacancies were created in Rajya Sabha after the just concluded Lok Sabha elections including two each from Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra and one each from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Tripura. While seven of these MPs are from the BJP, two are from the Congress and one from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). While the BJP will retain all the seven seats, it also has the numbers in the Haryana and Rajasthan assemblies to win the two seats. Though the Opposition INDIA alliance is in a formidable position in Lok Sabha, NDA gaining majority in Rajya Sabha will put the opposition in a tough wicket.
BJP’s Piyush Goyal, Biplab Kumar Deb, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Vivek Thakur, Sarbananda Sonowal, Kamakhya Prasad Tasa and Udayanraje Bhonsale and RJD’s Misa Bharati are the other members who vacated the Upper House.
Number-crunching
According to rules, to get formal recognition in either Upper or Lower House, the party concerned must have at least 10% of the total strength of the House. A single party has to meet the 10% seat criterion. The minimum requirement for any party to hold the Leader of the Opposition post needs to have at least 25 MPs. However, former LS secretary general PDT Achary said those rules are no longer valid. The majority mark in the 245-member Rajya Sabha is 123, but five seats are vacant. Thus, the strength of the House is reduced to 240 and the majority mark to 121.
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