Rajesh Sinha
The Rajya Sabha elections have left the BJP within touching distance of a majority in the Upper House, but it’s not quite there yet: it is just four short of the majority mark.
Overall, the BJP won 30 seats, including 20 unopposed, out of 56 Rajya Sabha seats for which the elections were held on Tuesday, February 27, 2023. The BJP’s tally in Rajya Sabha will go up to 97 and of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to 117, once all 56 members take oath. This is four short of the majority mark of 121 in the house with a strength of 240, factoring in five vacancies – four from Jammu and Kashmir and one from the nominated member category. (The total potential strength of Rajya Sabha is 245: 233 elected and 12 nominated).
Not that the lack of majority matters much. The ruling party manages effortlessly to have its way and get the house’s stamp on its measure decisions, just as it had its way in getting its nominee elected in Himachal Pradesh despite having smaller numbers and snatching away one member from Samajwadi Party (SP) Uttar Pradesh to get eight of its nominees elected against two of the SP.
At one level, it shows political management. The BJP is an energetic political machine always on the lookout for any opportunity to maximise its gains, expand its base, and strengthen its hold. It is not just vigorous; it is aggressive and ruthless in this pursuit. It finds chinks in the armour of its rivals, their weak links – and moves in quickly to exploit them to its advantage. This was in full display during the Rajya Sabha elections.
In contrast, the Congress in Himachal Pradesh and the SP in Uttar Pradesh not only displayed a phenomenal lack of any such qualities,but their leaders also showed a complete disconnect with their own party members and supporters. In fact, it seems the BJP was in closer contact with them.
In Himachal Pradesh, the half a dozen Congress leaders who voted against the party line are the old guards who were, according to some commentators, resentful of letting chief ministership go to Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu. Sukhu, despite the fact that he was the choice of 30 of the 40 party MLAs. To be fair, the disgruntled lot had been sending out messages to the party high command for quite some time. The latter, perhaps confident of its numbers, never bothered to address their grudge and therein lay its folly.
It also failed to keep in its fold the three independent MLAs who went and voted against the Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Singhvi did not lose to BJP’s Harsh Mahajan. They tied at 34 votes each, and Mahajan won by draw of lots. BJP appears to have chosen Mahajan carefully. Formerly from the Congress, his connections in that party perhaps proved useful.
In Uttar Pradesh, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav displayed a similar disconnect with his party leaders. In fact, the SP chief whip himself was among the seven MLAs who voted against the party, denying it the third Rajya Sabha seat it would have otherwise bagged. Critics have been accusing Yadav of not encouraging contact with his party members. Naturally, as with the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, so in the case of SP in Uttar Pradesh: it was the BJP that was in closer touch with members of its rival party.
While this does display vigour and cleverness on the part of the BJP, in contrast to the lackadaisical approach of its rivals, it also points to another significant difference between them. Some of the characteristics that adversely affect the other parties and make their leaders ditch them do not seem to matter in the BJP. The BJP’s top leadership is also unapproachable and distant for most party members; it is even more authoritarian and does what it likes without taking others into confidence or any consultation, and it does not care if its orders to party members are unpalatable to them. Yet, no one goes against the party line.
Another aspect in this entire affair once again raises the issue of overturning the electoral mandate, which has frequently been witnessed when elected governments have been toppled by weaning away MLAs through threat or allurement. People have been heard to vent their frustration at voting for a non-BJP party when, ultimately, the person they voted for ends up switching over to the BJP.
The BJP has played this game unabashedly. Yes, toppling State Governments was a game that the Congress had also played, notably during the time of Indira Gandhi. But there are two things to be noted here. First, the State Governments were dismissed outright: there was no sale-purchase of elected MLAs. Secondly, the Constitution has evolved since then, and there are Supreme Court rulings and reports of various commissions whose recommendations suggest norms that ought to be followed for healthy functioning of the democratic federal system.
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