NDA gains RS ground, BJP bags 11 of 24 seats
ADVANTAGE BJP NDA has 101 members in Rajya Sabha while UPA is left with 65
NEW DELHI: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gained crucial ground in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, winning eight of the 19 seats across eight states that went to polls in the first major electoral exercise since the outbreak of Covid-19. The party has earlier won three of the five seats where candidates have won unopposed.
Former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia of the BJP, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and former Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren were among the heavyweights who emerged victorious on Friday even as high drama unfolded in Gujarat and Manipur, where the counting of votes began late amidst allegations of irregularities.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which had 90 members in the Rajya Sabha, took its tally to 101 in the 245-member Upper House, where the majority mark is 123. This is for the first time that the NDA tally in the Upper House has breached 100. The BJP alone will have 86 seats. The Congressled United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will have 65 seats.
The NDA, if backed by parties such as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), can breach the halfway mark in the Upper House, and will be in a position to push key legislations in Parliament. It has an overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha.
Elections to 24 seats in 10 states were initially scheduled for March 26, but they were deferred as India clamped a lockdown to stop the spread of the disease around that time. From the original list, four candidates in Karnataka, including former prime minister HD Devegowda, and one in Arunachal Pradesh were elected unopposed. Polling was held in the remaining seats on Friday. Altogether, the BJP won 11 of the 24 seats.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitizer were in supply in polling booths on Friday, and social distancing norms followed with nearly 1,000 legislators taking part in the polling process in the shadow of the pandemic. In Gujarat, the ruling BJP won three seats (Narhari Amin, Abhay Bharadwaj and Ramilaben Bara) and the Congress one (Shaktisinh Gohil). The resignation of eight MLAs since March denied the Congress a chance to bag the second seat. The declaration of the result was delayed after the Congress demanded that the Election Commission invalidate two BJP votes on different grounds.
The Congress objected to Bhupendrasinh Chudasama casting his vote on the ground that his election was annulled by the Gujarat high court in May. The Supreme Court has stayed that order. The party also red-flagged Kesrisinh Solanki’s vote, saying an unauthorised person accompanied him inside the booth.
NEW DELHI: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) bagged 11 of the 24 Rajya Sabha seats that went to the polls on Thursday, bringing the ruling coalition within striking distance of the majority mark in the 245 member-strong Upper House of Parliament and in a much better position to manoeuvre position to clear crucial bills.
The ruling alliance now has 101 members in the Rajya Sabha. The Bharatiya Janata Party alone commands 86 seats – of which 11 were won on Thursday.
With the help of parties such as the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu (9 seats), the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh (6), the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha (9), the Mizo National Front in Mizoram (1) and four nominated members, the NDA is in a position to breach the majority mark of 123 in the Upper House.
These parties have backed the NDA on a number of key pieces of legislation in the past – for instance, during the passage of the controversial Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill that bifurcated the erstwhile border state into two Union territories last year.
Four nominated members are also expected to back the ruling coalition. The opposition United Progressive Alliance has 65 members in the Upper House with the Congress having 44 seats.
Among the big names who won were senior BJP leader and former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, former Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren, and former prime minister HD Devegowda.
The numerical boost for the NDA that can now hope to breach the halfway mark with like-minded parties is significant as the Narendra Modi government has signalled its intent to roll out bold reforms to attract more investments in the postCovid world order.
The government has already asked the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DIPPT) to prepare a document to woo investors in China and according to officials involved in the process, major reforms that require parliamentary sanctions would be part of the new policy.
The NDA’s numbers assume significance because the government faced a stiff challenge in the Upper House in its first term because it didn’t enjoy a majority. The government failed to push through some key bills, such as the land acquisition bill.
But things started to change after Narendra Modi returned to power with a thumping majority in summer last year. The NDA now enjoys a massive majority in the Lok Sabha with 335 of the 543 seats.
Soon after Modi was re-elected in May last year, cracks started appearing in Opposition unity. Bills to ban triple talaq, bifurcate Jammu & Kashmir into two Union territories and the resolution to effectively scrap Article 370 passed in the Upper House.
The added strength of the coalition can also come handy to tackle any possible Opposition criticism for the government’s handling of the conflict between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh, the handling of the economy and the Covid pandemic. In the past few weeks, the Opposition has criticised the government, especially over the plight of migrant workers and the issue is likely to come up during the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament.
The government has a long list of pending bills that it aims to push through quickly in Parliament. These include the two labour codes—industrial relations and social security— that are aimed to reform the labour market to woo investors. The government also is keen to clear the Personal Data Protection Bill, a contentious legislation that aims to deal with securing data of private people. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill and the surrogacy bill are in the pipeline.