BJP Rajya Sabha Tally Crosses 100 For First Time Since 2022

In a boost for the ruling BJP ahead of the elections for the Vice President on September 9, the party has crossed the 100 mark in the Rajya Sabha for the first time since April 2022, with three nominated members joining it.

Top lawyer, Ujjwal Nikam, former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and social worker C Sadanandan Master, who took oath as Rajya Sabha MPs last month, joined the BJP this week, taking the party's tally to 102. 

The Rajya Sabha currently has a strength of 240 MPs, including 12 nominated members, and has five vacancies.

After the results for the polls for 13 Rajya Sabha seats, held on March 31, 2022, were declared the following month, the BJP had become only the second party in India's history to have over 100 MPs in the Upper House of Parliament - the Congress had enjoyed the distinction between 1988 and 1990. The BJP's tally had, at the time, gone up from 97 to 101. 

From that high, however, the BJP's numbers dwindled and were at 99 as of last week. The NDA now has 134 MPs in the Rajya Sabha - including 5 of 12 nominated members - and is comfortably over the current majority mark of 121. 

Mr Nikam, 72, shot to fame after he was appointed the special public prosecutor for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and prosecuted Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist involved in the attacks who was caught alive. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2016 and contested the Lok Sabha election from the Mumbai North Central seat on a BJP ticket last year, but lost to the Congress' Varsha Gaikwad.

Harsh Vardhan Shringla was the foreign secretary between 2020 and April 2022 and was the chief coordinator for the G20 summit in 2023. He has also served as India's Ambassador to the US and High Commissioner to Bangladesh.

C Sadanandan Master is a social worker and educator from Kerala. His legs were hacked off in 1994, and he had claimed the attack was by CPM workers, who were upset because he had shifted allegiance to the BJP. Mr Master contested the Assembly elections in Kerala in 2016 on a BJP ticket, but could not win.

Also nominated to the Rajya Sabha with the three men last month was political scientist and historian Meenakshi Jain. She was a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research and was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020.