BJP’s Rajya Sabha strength comes down to 86. What does this mean for the ruling party?

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) strength in the Rajya Sabha has fallen after four nominated members completed their terms on July 13. The four Rajya Sabha members are Rakesh Sinha, Ram Shakal, Sonal Mansingh, and Mahesh Jethmalani.

These four were chosen—as non-aligned members—by President Droupadi Murmu on the advice of the BJP and later formally allied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.  

With the retirement, the BJP’s strength in the Upper House comes down to 86. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has 101 members.

The present strength of the Rajya Sabha is 225. The majority mark in the Rajya Sabha is 113. The Congress-led INDIA bloc has 87 members. Of these, the Congress has 26, Trinamool Congress has 13, and the Aam Aadmi Party and the DMK have 10 members each in the Upper House.

With 86 members in Rajya Sabha, the government relies on non-NDA parties, including its former ally AIADMK and Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party, to pass bills. AIADMK has four MPs, while YSRCP has 11 members. Both parties have supported the ruling party in the past.

The non-NDA parties

Another party in the Upper House is Naveen Patnaik’s BJD, which has nine MPs in the Rajya Sabha. The BJD used to extend support to the BJP, but Naveen Patnaik has now said that the party will no longer extend its support after losing to the saffron party in the recent Odisha Assembly polls.

Under these circumstances, another non-aligned party, BRS, which has four MPs and independents, is also a key player. There are 12 nominated members in the Rajya Sabha. Although non-aligned, they usually support the ruling party.

The numbers in the Rajya Sabha will change after the assembly elections scheduled in states like Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand, which are scheduled for later this year.

Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by MLAs through the proportional representation process with the single transferable vote (STV) system. Each MLA’s vote is counted only once.