Rajya Sabha Election 2022 Result: BJP tally in Upper House touches 100 for the first time; Congress loses Assam

Rajya Sabha Election Results 2022: Riding on the back of its victory in Nagaland, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh and Assam, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s tally has reached the 100-mark in the Rajya Sabha for the first time. The BJP has won three seats – two in Assam and one in Tripura – voting and counting for which was held yesterday. The saffron party had already bagged one seat each in Nagaland and Himachal Pradesh unopposed. With this, the BJP became the first party to touch the 100-mark in the Upper House since 1988, saffron party leaders claimed.

The saffron party’s victory in Nagaland, Assam and Tripura also ensured that all four Rajya Sabha seats from the northeastern states were bagged by the BJP.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that stormed into power in Punjab with a massive mandate, has already bagged all five Rajya Sabha seats unopposed. The new AAP Rajya Sabha MPs from Punjab are Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal and Sanjeev Arora.

Of the three seats in Kerala, the ruling LDF won two while the Congress bagged one seat. All India president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) A A Rahim and CPI Kannur district secretary P Santhosh Kumar were elected on behalf of the LDF while Kerala Mahila Congress chief Jebi Mather was elected on behalf of the Opposition.

Tripura BJP president Dr Manik Saha was elected to the state’s lone Rajya Sabha seat after polling 40 votes while his rival candidate, CPI(M) nominee Bhanu Lal Saha, got just 15 votes. An MLA of the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), a constituent of the ruling BJP-led coalition, did not vote.

In Himachal Pradesh, BJP candidate Sikander Kumar, the outgoing Himachal Pradesh University Vice-Chancellor, was elected unopposed as the Congress did not field its candidate for lack of enough numbers in the assembly.

In Nagaland BJP leader S Phangnon Konyak was elected unopposed, distinguishing her as the first female legislator to represent the state in Parliament’s Upper House.

In Assam, the BJP outsmarted Congress to bag both Rajya Sabha seats on offer as several opposition MLAs either cross-voted for the ruling party’s candidate or got their votes invalidated/cancelled. BJP leader Pabitra Margherita and Rwngwra Narzary, backed by its ally United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL), won with a comfortable majority. Congress candidate Ripun Bora could not make it to the Upper House. Of the total 13 seats for which elections were held, the AAP and the BJP won five each, the LDF two and the Congress one.