RS Tally
BJP's Rajya Sabha figure lowers to 86, NDA now 12 short of majority
New Delhi/IBNS: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s tally of seats in Parliament's upper house, Rajya Sabha, dipped to 86 after four nominated members- Rakesh Sinha, Ram Shakal, Sonal Mansingh and Mahesh Jethmalani- completed their terms on Monday, media reports said.
The four MPs were selected as non-aligned members by President Droupadi Murmu on the advice of the ruling party, BJP.
Later, they aligned with the Modi government.
With the decrease in the number, the ruling coalition NDA's figure dipped to 101, 12 short of the majority mark (113) in the house of 245 members.
Currently, Rajya Sabha has 225 members.
In the opposition camp, the INDIA bloc has 87 MPs of which Congress and Trinamool Congress have the lion's share with 26 and 13 respectively.
The dipping in the number in Rajya Sabha puts the Modi government in comparatively difficult situation even in the upper house, weeks after the BJP required the mandatory support of its allies to come to power.
The short of majority means the NDA, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will now require the support of parties like AIADMK, YSRCP, which are neither in the ruling nor in the opposition camp.
The YSRCP, which is led by former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, has 11 MPs while AIADMK has 4 members.
Though the YSRCP had earlier supported the Modi government based on issues, the equations might become different now with the Telugu Desam Party in an alliance with the BJP ousted the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh just in June.
Biju Janata Dal too had supported Modi on several occasions but it would be interesting to see how things pan out now as the BJP ousted the Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha last month.
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