BJP retains Lok Sabha tally; Maharashtra win boosts Rajya Sabha majority prospects

The BJP-led alliance's landslide victory in Maharashtra has boosted its prospects in the Rajya Sabha and could help it get a majority in the Upper House

New Delhi: The BJP on Saturday retained its Lok Sabha tally after recounting of votes led to Congress winning Nanded parliamentary seat in Maharashtra, but a runaway victory in the state assembly elections will boost the ruling alliance's prospects in the Rajya Sabha that gets the second-highest number of members from the western state.

The BJP had won 240 seats in the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year. After its win in the Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, both of which were won by the Congress earlier, the main opposition party's tally in the 543-member Lower House also remains unchanged at 99.

The Nanded bypoll was necessitated by the death of Congress MP Vasantrao Chavan on August 26. The party leader Rahul Gandhi had won from Rae Bareli and Wayanad, but he vacated his Wayanad seat from where his sibling Priyanka Gandhi Vadra won on Saturday.

Ravindra Chavan of the Congress, who was seen losing to BJP's Santukrao Hambarde, finally won with a margin of 1,457 votes after the votes were recounted in Nanded.

The Basirhat seat in West Bengal is now the lone vacancy in the Lok Sabha.

Trinamool Congress MP SK Nurul Islam died on September 25. However, a bypoll could not be held in the seat as an election petition is pending against Islam in the Calcutta High Court.

The BJP-led alliance's landslide victory in Maharashtra has, however, boosted its prospects in the Rajya Sabha and could help it get a majority in the Upper House.

Maharashtra sends 19 members to the Rajya Sabha.

At present, the BJP has seven members in the Upper House while the Congress has three, Shiv Sena one, Shiv Sena (UBT) two, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) three, NCP (Sharad Pawar) two and the Republican Party of India (Athawale) one.

The BJP has 95 MPs in the Rajya Sabha. With it allies, the tally goes up to 112. Besides, there are six nominated members who support the ruling party.

The highest number of MPs in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha come from Uttar Pradesh followed by Maharashtra.

While there are no immediate vacancies from Maharashtra, the Upper House has 10 vacancies from various other states, of which more than half are likely to go to the BJP. There are also four vacancies for nominated members.

This will easily push the BJP-led alliance past the halfway mark in the 245-member House.

Maharashtra Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here

Jharkhand Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here

Bypoll 2024 results | Check Karnataka results here

Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls took place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP went up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress tried to make their mark. Maha Yuti are currently comfortably poised to win. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faced a challenge after Hemant Soren's arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP, but look set to retain power with its I.N.D.I.A. allies. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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