Rajya Sabha polls: Congress led opposition’s tally set to drop below 100 mark

New Delhi, Oct 28: The Congress-led opposition's tally in the Rajya Sabha is likely to go down below the 100 mark for the first time in the recent past. On the other hand, the BJP is set to take its tally up to 92 owing to the upcoming biennial elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The BJP is set to win 8 out of the 10 Uttar Pradesh seats and also bag the lone seat in Uttarakhand in the November 9 elections. The polls are being held as 11 Rajya Sabha members will retire next month, a report in the Hindustan Times said.

Of the 11 seats, the BJP holds only 3 from Uttar Pradesh, while the rest are held by the Samajwadi Party, Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party. The net gain of the BJP would be six seats, five from UP and one from Uttarakhand. This would mean that the party's tally would increase from 86 to 92.

This would in fact be enough to compensate for the three seats each of the Shiv Sena and Akali Dal, the two allies who left the NDA. Although the NDA will not touch the majority mark in the Upper House in this election, it would improve its tally from 112 to 118. The opposition's tally on the other hand would be reduced to 95 from 101 in the House where the majority mark is 123.