The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 30 seats, including 20 unopposed out of 56 Rajya Sabha seats for which the elections were held on Tuesday. The numbers will take the BJP’s tally in Rajya Sabha to 97 and that of BJP-led NDA to 117, just four short of the majority mark of 121 in the 240-member House once all 56 members are sworn in.
Of 56 Rajya Sabha seats that fall vacant in April, BJP won 30; 20 unopposed and 10 in elections held Tuesday. The Rajya Sabha polls 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.
Last week, as many as 41 candidates were declared winners as there were no other candidates in the fray on those seats. The BJP was the main gainer, having won an additional seat in Uttar Pradesh and bagging one in Himachal Pradesh.
The biennial elections for the 56 seats were necessitated as 50 members will complete their term on April 2 and six will retire on April 3. Heading into polling day, the ruling NDA had 109 MPs in the Upper House, 10 members short of the halfway mark in the 238 member Rajya Sabha. The Opposition INDIA bloc had 89 MPs.
Uttar Pradesh had the most seats up for vote during the biennial elections (10), then Maharashtra and Bihar (6 each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (5 each), Karnataka and Gujarat (4 each), Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan (3 each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh (1 each).
However, after the results out on Tuesday evening, the BJP remained the single-largest party in RS with 97 members (including five nominated members who joined the party) followed by Congress with 29 members, Trinamool Congress with 13, DMK and AAP with 10 each, BJD and YSRCP with nine each, BRS with seven, RJD with six, CPM with five, and AIADMK and JD(U) with four each.
The NDA, with 117 members, is now only four short of the majority mark of 121.
