Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and current Rajya Sabha member Digvijay Singh’s loss from Rajgarh in the Lok Sabha elections may have come as a blessing for the Congress.

Right now neither the Congress nor Narendra Modi is at ease in the Upper House of Parliament.

With the retirement of four nominated members --- Sonal Mansingh, Rakesh Sinha, Ram Shakal and Mahesh Jethmalani, all of whom had aligned with the BJP during their terms – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, with 86 members, is in a minority in the Upper House.

The combined strength of the NDA combine has dropped to 101, which is 12 short of the majority mark of 113. The Congress, with just 26 seats, is not comfortable either.

To get crucial bills passed in the Rajya Sabha, PM Modi will have to depend on parties not in either NDA or INDIA camps, like the BJP’s former ally AIADMK, which has four MPs, and the YRSCP that has 11 MPs.

Former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s BJD with nine MPs has already announced that it will not bail the Modi government out as it had in the past.

To keep the Leader of Opposition status in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress needs at least 25 MPs. Two of its members – KC Venugopal and Deepinder Singh Hooda – won the Lok Sabha elections and have resigned. That brings the Congress tally in the Upper House down to 26, and the LoP status hanging by a thread.

The seat vacated by Venugopal in Rajasthan will fall in the BJP’s kitty.

“Had Digvijay Singh won from Rajgarh, we would have been down by another member in the Rajya Sabha. No way the party could get the seat in the current formation of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly,” said a senior Congress leader.

A section in the Congress questioned the need for Venugopal to have contested for the Lok Sabha under the current circumstances.

“He was brought into the Rajya Sabha as late as 2020 and still had two more years. Anyone else could have contested from Alappuzha and won,” said a Congress leader from Rajasthan. “It is not that he made up his mind overnight to contest the Lok Sabha polls. After the party lost power in Rajasthan it was clear that we could not retain that seat in the Rajya Sabha.”

The Rajya Sabha secretariat had last month notified 10 vacancies in the states of Assam, Bihar, Maharashtra (two seats each), Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura (one each).

Assembly elections are due in Maharashtra and Haryana around October this year and in Jharkhand towards the end of 2024.

The Election Commission will decide when to hold the elections to the Rajya Sabha seats. The BJP would like to give the push for early polls so that it gets Hooda’s vacated seat, as the party is in hot waters in Haryana and post Assembly the numbers may be stacked against the ruling party.

The Congress has managed the BRS MP Keshava Rao to switch camp and he is likely to return to the Rajya Sabha on a Congress ticket. The party has the numbers in the state to send him.

Once the elections to the vacant Rajya Sabha seats are held, the BJP is confident of bagging at least seven from Assam, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Tripura. How the Maharashtra Assembly polls unfold will also be crucial for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. That state has 19 seats. The NDA has 12, while the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi has seven. Among these 12 MPs, Union minister Piyush Goyal won from North Mumbai Lok Sabha constituency and had to vacate his Rajya Sabha seat along with Udayanraje Bhosale.

In case the AIADMK and YSRCP decide not to fall in line, the votes of the 12 nominated members will be crucial for Modi in his third term as prime minister.

“Nominated Rajya Sabha members play an important role, which was seen in the first two years of Narendra Modi’s second term, like during the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir,” said Trinamul Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev. “The nominated members are appointed by the President on the recommendations of the government. Question is, should they toe the ruling party line just because they have been appointed by the government, or keep an open mind on the issues? They are supposed to be non-partisan.”