Citizenship Reform Bill: What can happen in Rajya Sabha?

New Delhi, Dec 10, 2019, Tuesday

The NDA (BJP) has passed the Citizenship Reform Bill in the Lok Sabha with the help of its majority, but political pundits believe that the Modi government is going to be severely tested when the bill is introduced in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Opposition has in any way rejected the efforts of the bill to hang in the Rajya Sabha, while it was learned that the BJP had given its preliminary orders to pass the bill in Rajya Sabha at any cost. It is really interesting to know what can happen in Rajya Sabha.

The BJP leadership is confident that the same could happen on the issue of Article 370, which gave special status to Teen Tilak and Jammu and Kashmir.

The BJP has only 83 members in the Rajya Sabha. There are six members of the Janata Dal United. Janata Dal United supported the Bill in the Lok Sabha. But by then the Janata Dal-U had cracked and naturally, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was feeling tense.

There are three members of the Shiromani Akali Dal in the Rajya Sabha, one from the Republic Party of India and other members of the smaller parties. All these are linked to the NDA (BJP). Thus, there are currently 106 members of the NDA in the Rajya Sabha.

On the other hand, the Congress Rajya Sabha has 46 members. Lalu Yadav's RJD party and Sharad Pawar's NCP - each has four members. Besides, there are five DMK members and three members of the other parties. Thus there are 62 members of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

There are some parties that are neither in the NDA nor in the UPA. It cannot be imagined when these parties will favor. For example, the Trinamool Congress has 13 members in the Rajya Sabha. Six members of Telangana Rashtra Samithi, five from Marxist party, four from Mayawati's BSP, three from Arvind Kejriwal's AAP party and two from PDP of Mehbooba Mufti of Jammu and Kashmir, one each from Karnataka Janata Dal Secular. These members are said to be largely opposed to the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

In addition, there are twelve appointed members in the Rajya Sabha, of which eight have joined the BJP. That doesn't end the talk. There are other parties in the Rajya Sabha. Anna Dammuk's 11, seven from Orissa's second Janata Dal, two from Jagan Reddy's YSRCP in Andhra and two from Telugu Desam of Chandrababu Naidu and three from the Shiv Sena - the other 28.

The vote of all these MPs is also important. Even if the BJP leaves Maharashtra, the Sena's support for the bill does not rule out the possibility.

Interestingly, the BJP has 137 votes in view of the strength of the NDA and other parties supporting it. If the opposing parties of the UPA and the bill come together, their number 106 plus one appointed member opposes the bill, ie 107.

The Rajya Sabha has a total of 245 seats. There are currently five seats vacant. That means 240 seats. The Rajya Sabha should have 121 votes for majority. At present, the BJP has 137 votes. But who can not say when to change, so that the top BJP leaders are doing their math now.