Rajya Sabha polls: Legislative math a challenge for BJP

AHMEDABAD: The ruling BJP may have to part with two of its Rajya Sabha seats in Gujarat due to the change in the legislative arithmetic after last year’s state polls. The elections for 58 Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant across the country are slated to be held on March 23. Of these seats, four are in Gujarat which are currently held by the BJP.
According to the number of seats won in the Gujarat assembly elections held in December last year, both the BJP and the Congress are poised to get two seats each to the Upper House of Parliament. In the assembly polls, the BJP’s tally reduced to 99 in 2017 from 115 in 2012, while the Congress managed to increase its numbers to 77 from 60.

The dilemma for the BJP will be to select two candidates, because of the current four Rajya Sabha members, three are ministers —Arun Jaitely, Parshottam Rupala and Mansukh Mandaviya — and the fourth, Shankarbhai Vegad, is an OBC leader. “The BJP has 99 MLAs, while the Congress has 77 legislators in the assembly after the 2017 polls,” a state assembly official said. “According to the Rajya Sabha election rules, one candidate will require 38 votes to sail through. So both the parties are expected to win two seats each.”

The state Congress general secretary, Nishit Vyas, said, “The party can definitely take away two Rajya Sabha seats from the BJP due to the number of our MLAs. We require 38 first preferential votes and we have the numbers for it.” Sources in the Congress said intense lobbying was going on within the party to secure Rajya Sabha berths. “Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki, and leaders who lost in the assembly polls, such as Shaktisinh Gohil, Arjun Modhwadia, Siddarth Patel, and Tushar Chaudhary are likely to be in the fray for the seats,” a party source said.

However, the source also said that the final decision regarding the candidates will be taken by the party high command in New Delhi. For the BJP, the choice is likely to be difficult as it may get to retain only two ministers, and may possibly have to shift one of its ministers to another state, a party source said. Finance minister Jaitely has been representing Gujarat in the Rajya Sabha for last three terms from 2000. The BJP’s chief whip in the assembly, Pankaj Desai, said the selection of the candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls will be done by the party’s central leadership.

In August last year, the BJP and the Congress had bitterly fought the Rajya Sabha polls. For the then election to three seats, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel was one of the candidates. About five to six Congress MLAs had resigned prior to the election, while some legislators had crossvoted. The Congress had to even take its MLAs to a resort near Bengaluru to avoid “poaching”. Patel later managed to retain his seat.