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Twelve candidates including nine from BJP, two from its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and one from Congress have been elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha in the elections to vacant seats in the Upper House of Parliament.
With the BJP gaining numbers in the upper House of Parliament and strength of its allies also going up, the party-led National Democratic Alliance now has a majority, which will help the ruling alliance get bills passed smoothly. Among those elected unopposed are Union Ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu from Rajasthan and George Kurien from Madhya Pradesh. Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi has been elected to Rajya Sabha from Telangana. The BJP candidates elected unopposed also include Mission Ranjan Dass and Rameshwar Teli from Assam, Manan Kumar Mishra from Bihar, Kiran Chaudhary from Haryana, Dhiryasheel Patil from Maharashtra, Mamata Mohanta from Odisha and Rajeeb Bhattacharjee from Tripura. NCP's Nitin Patil got elected from Maharashtra and Rashtriya Lok Morcha leader Upendra Kushwaha has been elected from Bihar. NCP and RLM are allies of the BJP. The NDA had support of 110 MPs before the results of Rajya Sabha polls, including nominated members and this number has now gone up to 121. With the Upper House of Parliament now having 237 members, the majority mark is 119. There are eight vacancies including four from Jammu and Kashmir. NDA's majority mark in Rajya Sabha is expected to help the BJP get key legislations such as Waqf (Amendment) Bill get smoothly passed in the Upper House of Parliament. The bill is being examined by a Joint Parliamentary Committee. The BJP will have now have 96 members in the Upper House and Congress 27. Ten Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant as the sitting members were elected to Lok Sabha in the general elections held earlier this year. Bypolls were also held one seat each in Telangana and Odisha. The Election Commission earlier this month announced the schedule for the election to 12 vacant Rajya Sabha seats. (ANI)
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