Rajya Sabha deputy chairman election: With both NDA and Opposition confident, here's how the numbers stack up

The election to the post of deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha on Thursday will be a key contest, with the Opposition trying to muster a united front after the failure of no-confidence motion in the Parliament in July. The Opposition parties, led by the Congress, will look to retain the post after losing out on the vice president post due to the pulling out of JD(U), which now sides with the NDA. Whereas, the NDA, which is in minority in the Upper House, will look to have a candidate of its choice in the deputy chairman post as it will help the government in passing crucial legislations. [caption id=“attachment_2760120” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Rajya Sabha. PTI[/caption] The post had been lying vacant since June following the retirement of PJ Kurien, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha. The current strength of Rajya Sabha is 244 and support of 123 members will be needed for a win in the full House. Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu had suggested that the deputy chairperson should be elected by consensus on the last day of the Monsoon Session and thus the nominations for the same were closed on Wednesday . While the NDA has fielded JD(U)’s Harivansh Narayan Singh, a first-time MP representing Bihar and a former journalist, the Opposition has picked Congress’ BK Hariprasad as its candidate. Singh is the former editor-in-chief of Hindi daily Prabhat Khabar and was one of the three JD(U) MPs elected unopposed from Bihar in 2014. Whereas, Hariprasad is a three-time MP on a Congress ticket and represents Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha. He is also the general secretary of the All India Congress Committee. Congress leader Anand Sharma said that prior to Hariprasad’s selection, five sets of nomination papers — five proposers and five seconders — were filed by the combined Opposition. Earlier, the names of DMK’s Tiruchi Siva, NCP’s Vandana Chavan, nominated member K T S Tulsi and BJD’s Prasanna Acharya were doing the rounds. As far as the support of various parties in the House go, the Opposition, reportedly has at least 116 votes, including two of the YSR Congress. Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP too has extended its support by decided to not vote in favour of the ruling party’s candidate. Meanwhile, Opposition parties are also in touch with BJD, which is yet to declare of its support. “Because of Assembly elections in Odisha in 2019, BJD may abstain or be absent during voting,” a senior Opposition leader told The Indian Express. The Congress in itself has 50 members in the House at present. On the other hand, besides the nominated and Independent members affiliated to it, BJP, which has 73 members on its own, is banking on the support of the likes of AIADMK, Shiv Sena and Akali Dal. Chandrasekhar Rao’s TRS is also likely to support the NDA candidate on Thursday. But the vote of BJD, which has nine members in the House, will sill be a crucial and deciding factor to swing the election in the ruling party’s favour or take away from it. Parties like AAP and DMK (in light of Karunanidhi’s death) are yet to clear their stand, while PDP is, for all obvious reasons, likely to not support the NDA.

The current strength of the Rajya Sabha is 244 and the two contenders would require at least 123 votes to be chosen for the post. The BJP is the largest party in the House with 73 members. Its allies JD(U), Shiv Sena, Akali Dal have six, three and three members, respectively.

The nomination of the two candidates, however, was not without controversies. The Opposition took a considerable amount of time to decide on a final name . After several rounds of meeting on Tuesday, the Opposition had concluded that NCP’s Vandana Chavan, whose name was proposed by Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satish Chandra Mishra and seconded by TMC leader Derek O’Brien, would be the right fit as she might able to get the support of even a few of NDA allies. However, later the Congress decided to field its nominee as the joint Opposition candidate. Whereas, by deciding to nominate Harivansh Narayan Singh as NDA's candidate , the BJP leadership has given a signal that the BJP and JD(U) are trusted allies and plan to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections jointly.