Rajya Sabha elections: BJP-led NDA just 4 short of majority mark of 121

Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is just four short of the majority mark of 121 in the 240-member House. On Tuesday, the BJP won 10 Rajya Sabha seats — and 20 unopposed earlier. Fifty-six Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant in April.

With the win of these 30 seats, the BJP’s tally in Rajya Sabha will go up to 97 and NDA to 117, once all 56 members take oath. The BJP remains the single largest party in the Rajya Sabha with 97 members, including five nominated MPs who joined the party, followed by the Congress with 29 members.

The strength of the Rajya Sabha will now stand at 240 after factoring in five vacancies – four from Jammu and Kashmir and one from the nominated member category.

The Rajya Sabha elections for 15 seats across three states were marked by cross-voting, with the BJP winning 10 seats, the Congress three and the Samajwadi Party two seats. The BJP was the main gainer, having won an additional seat in Uttar Pradesh and bagging one in Himachal Pradesh.

The biggest surprise came from Himachal Pradesh, where Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost as six MLAs of the ruling Congress cross-voted in the election. The BJP’s Harsh Vardhan emerged victorious, with the result pushing the more than one-year-old Congress government to the brink. BJP leaders said the Congress has lost the majority in the assembly but chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said that the strength can be tested on the floor of the assembly.

Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha poll

The Bharatiya Janata Party won eight seats in the Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and the Samajwadi Party, which had put up three candidates, could win only two seats.

The eight BJP candidates who won in Uttar Pradesh are former Union Minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, Amarpal Maurya, Sangeeta Balwant , BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, Naveen Jain and Sanjay Seth.

Jaya Bachchan and Ramji Lal Suman of Samajwadi Party also won. Alok Ranjan, the third candidate fielded by the Samajwadi Party, suffered a defeat.

Karnataka Rajya Sabha poll

The results in Karnataka were on expected lines with the Congress, which is in power in the state, winning three seats and the BJP one. Congress candidates got more votes than the party’s numbers in the assembly. The BJP-JDS candidate Kupendra Reddy lost the elections. BJP MLA ST Somashekar voted in favour of the Congress.

Himachal Pradesh Rajya Sabha poll,

In Himachal Pradesh, it was a big setback for the ruling Congress as nine MLAs, including six from the party, cross-voted in the election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the state.

With both Harsh Mahajan and Abhishek Manu Singhvi getting 34 votes each, the winner was decided through a draw of lots.

Singhvi addressed a press conference later and conceded defeat while noting that the MLAs who had cross-voted had taught him “a lot about human nature, its fickleness”.

(With inputs from agencies)

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