Citizenship (Amendment) Bill: In numbers, how the Rajya Sabha voted
New Delhi, Dec 12: The historic Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, paving the way for it to become a law. For the Bill to be passed, it needed 112 votes. There were 223 members who were present in the House, which meant that the magic number was 112. At the end, the Bill was passed with 125 MPs voting in its favour.
BJP sources tell OneIndia that their estimate before the voting was that they would get anything between 121 and 130 votes to get the Bill passed. The Opposition, on the other hand, would not be pleased as it had expected 110 to vote against the Bill. However, at the end only 99 voted against the Bill.
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The Shiv Sena, which had done a flip-flop after voting in favour of the Bill in the Lok Sabha, staged a walkout. The Shiv Sena has three MPs in the Upper House. Apart from the BJP, the others who supported the Bill were JD(U), SAD and AIADMK. The Bill was also supported by the BJD, TDP, YSR Congress and Independents.
Further
two
MPs
from
the
NCP,
one
each
from
the
Samajwadi
Party
and
Trinamool
Congress
were
absent.
The
opposition
led
by
the
UPA
had
expected
at
least
110
votes.
The
UPA
had
the
support
of
64
MPs
and
had
expected
46
more
MPs
from
parties
such
as
the
TMC,
SP,
TRS
and
the
CPI
(M)
to
oppose
the
Bill.
This
would
have
meant
that
it
would
have
the
backing
of
110
MPs.
However,
the
final
number
ended
up
at
99.
Prior to the final voting, the House had also rejected a motion to send the Bill to a select committee of the House. The motion was also rejected 125-99.