NEW DELHI: The next round biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha will radically change the complexion of the Upper House ‘with the ruling Congress (I) party dropping at least ten seats and the Bharatiya Janata party displacing the Janata Dal as the main opposition party. ‘The biennial elections, which will be held between April and July for retiring members from 15 states, ‘will see reduction in the Congress (D’s strength in the House from 104 to 94 inthe24S member House the Janata Dal, which is currently to main opposition party with 25, members will lose this. status. ‘Consequently, Mr. Jaipal Reddy will cease to be the leader of the ‘opposition and hand over the baton other BJP, which currently has 17 members in the House will pick up at least another dozen seats and thus be the biggest beneficiary in these elections. The party will then become the main opposition ‘party in both houses of Parliament. ‘Apart from these 63 members seven other members retire this ‘year. They include two members from Haryana who retire on August 1,alonememberfrom Jammu ‘and Kashmir who retires on October 21 and four nominated members M.F-Hussain, Ravi Shankar, R.K. Narayan and Amrita Pritam,
Besides Punjab, the Congress (I) will gain in Andhra Pradesh, Kamataka, Assam, Kerala and “Tripura in these elections. But these ‘gains will be wiped out by the losses that the party is certain to suffer in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The party will be down by 5 seats in Uttar Pradesh, four in Bihar and three in Madhya Pradesh.
The term of six members of the Ralya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh ‘ends on April 2. The Congress (I) has one retiring member but will bag four seats. The Telugu Desam, which has five outgoing members is certain to win one. The other seat will go to the TDP or the left parties depending on who transfers the surplus vote to whom.
Twelve members of the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh are ‘scheduled to retire next July, of whom 7 belong to the Congress (I). With its current strength of 46 in the state assembly, the party can hope to bag only one seat. A second seat is possible for the Ajit ‘group of the Janata Dal, which is ‘expected to be an ally of the Congress (I) in Parliament. The BJP will comfortably bag six seas in this State while the other seats will 200 Janata Dal and Janata Party.
In Bihar the Congress (I), with five retiring members is certain 19 ‘get one seat, and possibly wangle ‘another with the support of independents in the Bihar assembly.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 13, 1992
