BJP's Rajya Sabha tally reaches 102 after 3 nominated MPs join House

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reached 102 members in the Rajya Sabha for the first time since April 2022. This increase happened after three nominated MPs joined the party this week, namely Ujjwal Nikam, Harsh Vardhan Shringla and C Sadanandan Master.

All three took oath as Rajya Sabha MPs last month. With the addition of these three nominated MPs, BJP’s count is now 102. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has 134 members in the Rajya Sabha, including 5 nominated MPs. The majority mark in the house is 123.

The Rajya Sabha has a maximum strength of 250 members, including 238 elected and 12 nominated by the President. Currently, there are 245 members in total.

After the Rajya Sabha elections in March 2022, the BJP crossed 100 members for the first time, reaching 101 MPs. This was only the second time any party had done this, after the Congress between 1988 and 1990. At that time, the BJP's tally had gone up from 97 to 101.

Ujjwal Nikam is a senior lawyer known for prosecuting the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case. He contested the last Lok Sabha election from Mumbai North Central on a BJP ticket but lost.

Harsh Vardhan Shringla was India’s foreign secretary from 2020 to 2022. He also served as India’s ambassador to the US and as high commissioner to Bangladesh.

C Sadanandan Master is a social worker from Kerala. He survived a violent attack in 1994, which he said was linked to political rivalry. He ran for the Kerala Assembly in 2016 on a BJP ticket but did not win.

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