Rajya Sabha polls: AAP, BJP to make big; INC, SAD, BSP slide

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party, which witnessed a tremendous sweeping victory in Punjab Assembly elections, will have quite a big jump in grabbing seats in the Upper House of the Parliament in the forthcoming Rajya Sabha (RS) elections. While BJP is about to attain 100 plus seats this year from the current 97, Congress will be struggling to keep its 34 in hand, The Indian Express (TIE) reported.

In the case of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which had suffered an unexpected disaster in Punjab, would be going to have zero representation in Rajya Sabha since all the three sitting members from the party are retiring. Mayawati's BSP, however, would have one seat left in the Upper House.

Three each from Congress and the SAD, and one from BJP in RS are retiring in April and July. According to TIE, elections for five of the seven seats have been declared, and AAP will win all. Thus, the latter's tally from the three RS MPs will reach 10, raising itself as the 5th largest party in the House.

In the case of Congress, 13 out of 34 will retire in the mentioned two months, and TIE says that it has numbers in other states to reclaim nine more seats. It will be short of four seats as of the current tally but can win two more if things work well with AIUDF in Assam and DMK in Tamil Nadu. Those retiring in Congress include prominent leaders such as Anand Sharma, A K Antony, P Chidambaram, Vivek Tankha, Jairam Ramesh, Kapil Sibal and Ambika Soni. In BSP, the retirements are Ashok Siddharth and Satish Chandra Misra, while Balwinder Singh Bhunder, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Naresh Gujral in SAD.