By July, there will be two big changes in the Rajya Sabha — one, there won’t be a single Akali Dal member, and second, there will be only one member BSP member left in the House. The Congress will also come precariously close to losing the Leader of Opposition (LoP) post.
The results of the elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur, and Goa dictate these changes.
All the seven seats of Punjab are getting vacant this year. Elections to the five seats have already been announced and another two will come up for polls in July. All these seats are expected to go to the new victor- the Aam Aadmi Party, which won 92 seats. Currently, three each are with the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal and one with the BJP. “It is perhaps the first time that we will not have a single member in the Upper House. While I wish all the best to the AAP, the question is will they be able to keep the tall promises they have made. In cases of such sweeping mandates, the disillusionment also sets in that quickly,” Rajya Sabha member and senior Akali Dal MP Naresh Gujral said.
U.P. sends 31 members
Uttar Pradesh sends 31 members to the Rajya Sabha. Out of these, 11 fall vacant in July. The list of retirees includes BSP senior leader and Mayawati’s key confidante Satish Mishra. His colleague, Ashok Siddharth, also retires with Mr. Mishra - leaving sole member Shri Ramji behind.
In the coming Rajya Sabha elections to be held on March 31, the Congress is already slated to lose three seats - two from Assam and one from Himachal Pradesh. The retirees include the party’s deputy leader in the House, Anand Sharma, who was elected from Himachal Pradesh.
With Thursday’s results, additionally, it will lose the three seats in Punjab and one each from Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The list of retirees includes former Minister Kapil Sibal, who was nominated by the party from Uttar Pradesh; and Ambika Soni, who was elected from Punjab. So in total, the Congress could lose eight seats, bringing down its current tally of 34 members to 26. As per the Rajya Sabha rules and procedures, for any party to hold the position of Leader of Opposition its strength must be at least 10 percent of the total strength. The House currently has only 237. So, for the party to hold on to the LoP post, it must have 24-25 members.
Election of President
The election results have also brought Opposition parties’ hopes to float a common candidate against a BJP nominee crashing down. The President of India is elected by an electoral college comprising 543 Lok Sabha members, 233 Rajya Sabha members, and 4,120 MLAs. The value of the vote of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members remains uniform across the States but the value of the MLAs depends on the population of the State. Therefore, the value of the vote of an Uttar Pradesh MLA is the highest in the country.
