6 min readNew DelhiJan 30, 2024 10:59 AM IST
First published on: Jan 29, 2024 at 09:06 PM IST
The BJP’s decisive Assembly election victories in three Hindi heartland states in December and the change in political equations in Bihar on Sunday notwithstanding, the composition of the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is still short of the halfway mark, may not change significantly after the biennial elections next month.
The Election Commission on Monday announced that elections to 56 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states, which are falling vacant in April, will be held on February 27. While 50 members retire on April 2, six will retire the following day. Of the 238 members of the Upper House at present, 109 are from NDA parties while 89 belong to parties in the INDIA alliance.
Among the MPs whose term is ending are BJP president J P Nadda; former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; Union Ministers Bhupender Yadav, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Mansukh Mandaviya, V Muraleedharan, and Narayan Rane; BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni; and Samajwadi Party MP and actor Jaya Bachchan.
Of the 56 MPs who are retiring, 28 are from the BJP and 10 are from the Congress. The BJP is likely to retain almost the same number of seats while the Congress will win nine seats and can hope to get one more with the help of its allies in Bihar. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) will be the biggest loser. Three of its MPs are retiring and the Congress which ousted the BRS from power in Telangana last month is set to pick up two of the seats.
Uttar Pradesh will have the highest number of vacancies with 10 seats, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (six each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (five each), Karnataka and Gujarat (four each), Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan (three), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh (one each).
Among the 10 members retiring in UP, nine are from the BJP but it is expected to win seven. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which improved its tally to 111 in 2022 from 47 in 2017, will pick the remaining three. But the BJP will gain a seat in Bihar. Of the six retiring, two each are from the JD(U) and the RJD and one each from the BJP and the Congress. Given the present strength of the Assembly, the BJP and the RJD will get two seats each and the JD(U) one. The RJD-led Opposition has the numbers to get the sixth seat, which the Congress is vying for.
The other interesting electoral battle will be in Maharashtra where the NCP and the Shiv Sena have split since the last Assembly elections. Based on the current strength, the ruling Mahayuti coalition of the BJP, Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and NCP led by Ajit Pawar, is likely to stake claim to five out of the six seats while the Congress is eyeing a comfortable victory from the sixth seat.
Among those retiring from Maharashtra are Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, Union MSME Minister Narayan Rane and former Union Minister Prakash Javadekar besides the Congress’s Kumar Ketkar, Sharad Pawar-affiliated NCP member Vandana Chavan, and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) member Anil Desai.
The outcome will be more or less the same in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, the three heartland states which the BJP won in December. Among the five retiring members in Madhya Pradesh, four are from the BJP and one from the Congress. Based on the current strength of the two parties, the outcome is likely to remain the same. In Rajasthan, two BJP members and one from the Congress are retiring. And the parties have the strength to elect the same number of MPs. In Chhattisgarh, a BJP member is retiring and the party will get back the seat.
The Congress will lose seats in Gujarat. Of the four members who are retiring, two each are from the BJP and the Congress. All four will now go to the BJP. In Odisha, two of the retiring members are from the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and one is from the BJP. All three will now go to the BJD. The BJP will retain the lone seats falling vacant in Uttarakhand and Haryana, while the Congress will win the one seat in Himachal Pradesh from where J P Nadda is set to retire.
In Karnataka, three MPs from the Congress and one from the BJP are retiring and the outcome after the elections will be the same. Another interesting change will be in Andhra Pradesh. A member each from the BJP, the TDP, and the ruling YSRCP are retiring. Based on the current strength, all three seats will go to the YSRCP.
The elections will be interesting in West Bengal, where all is not well between INDIA allies Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Congress. Of the five seats getting vacant, four are currently held by the TMC and one by the Congress. Based on the current strength, the TMC can get four again and the fifth seat will go to the BJP.
The retiring Congress MP is senior lawyer and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Abhishek Singhvi, who won last time with TMC support. Singhvi has appeared for the Mamata Banerjee government in cases in the Supreme Court.
Of the 238 members of the Upper House at present, 109 are from NDA parties while 89 belong to parties in the INDIA alliance. (File Photo) 
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