D K Singh & Ravish Tiwari

New Delhi, March 28: The UPA government has been reduced to a minority in the Rajya Sabha after the latest round of elections for 57 seats. The UPA-Left coalition is down from 118 to 115 members in the 235-member Upper House.

The figure includes Congress and Left-backed Independent Ahmad Sayeed Malihabadi from West Bengal, Independent Parimal Nathwani from Jharkhand who was supported by a section of the UPA including some Congress MLAs, and Biswajit Daimary of the Bodoland People’s Front. It also takes into consideration Independents in the current House including P C Alexander, Rahul Bajaj, Arjun Sengupta and Urkhao Gwra Brahma as well as those nominated by the UPA government.

This means the Congress will have to keep the BSP in good humour if it hopes to push through any contentious legislation in future, like the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, and Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Bill. The BSP has six members in the Upper House at present. UPA crisis managers may also like to keep their channels open with the SP which has 16 members.

The UPA’s strength has come down because elections could not be held to fill up four vacancies in Karnataka, where the Assembly remains dissolved. The UPA managed to retain its pre-election tally of 33 out of the 57 seats for which elections were held.

The House strength came down from 245 to 235 because of the four vacancies in Karnataka, disqualification of BJP member Jai Narain Prasad Nishad, vacation of the seat by T R Zeliang from Nagaland who was elected to the state Assembly, and four existing vacancies.

The BJP was a big gainer in the latest elections as it added five more MPs in its pre-election tally of nine (out of the 57 seats). The BJP now has 50 members in the Upper House. The Congress gained one seat, but its total tally came down from 71 to 69 because of the loss of the seats from Karnataka.

The Congress, BJP, Left, JD(U), NCP and LJP gained at the expense of regional parties like the TDP, AIADMK, Trinamool Congress and INLD.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress drew a blank as party-backed Independent Vivek Tankha could garner only 51 of the 58 votes required. BJP nominees Maya Singh, Prabhat Jha and Raghunandan Sharma romped home with ease.

editor@expressindia.com