New Delhi: With two more days left in the Budget Session, the action on Thursday shifted to Rajya Sabha with the Waqf (Amendment) Bill tabled in the Upper House, a day after it cleared the Lok Sabha after a 12-hour debate.
The Narendra Modi-led NDA has 117 MPs, just two short of the majority figure of 119. The BJP alone has 98 members followed by JD(U)’s four, the NCP’s 3, the TDP’s two and and one each from 10 other parties in the alliance. However, two nominated members and six independents can take it up to 125.
The opposition INDIA bloc has 88 MPs in the Upper House – Congress (27), Trinamool Congress (13), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Aam Aadmi Party (10 each), Rashtriya Janata Dal (five), Samajwadi Party and CPI-M (four each), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (three) and others.
These apart, 23 MPs are from non-NDA and non-INDIA bloc parties. And one among them is BJD, the regional party led by Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, whose strength in the Rajya Sabha has diminished to seven members after two of its MPs – Mamata Mohanta and Sujeet Kumar – jumped ship and currently represent BJP in the Upper House.
The BJD, however, has not issued a whip to its MP and has instead asked them to vote according to their conscience on the bill.
“The Biju Janata Dal has always upheld the principles of secularism and inclusivity, ensuring the rights of all communities. We deeply respect the diverse sentiments expressed by different sections of the minority communities regarding the Waqf (Amendment) Bill,
2024. Our party, having taken these views into careful consideration, has entrusted our members in the Rajya Sabha with the responsibility of exercising their conscience in the best interest of justice, harmony and the rights of all communities, should the Bill come up for voting. There is no Party Whip,” BJD MP Sasmit Patra posted on X.
The Conch party, however, had earlier said that it would oppose the Waqf Bills — the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2025, and the Mussalman Wakf (Repeal) Bill, 2024 — when these come for debate in the Rajya Sabha. “From our side, Rajya Sabha member Muzibulla Khan, who is representing the Muslim community, will be speaking, and all the demerits that are there in the Bill will be presented thereafter by the BJD on the floor of the House,” Patra had earlier told the media.
The BJD-BJP bonhomie was in full display during Modi 2.0 when the regional party was in power in the state. Despite its claims of maintaining “equidistance” from the BJP as well as Congress, the BJD almost always supported the NDA government in Parliament over crucial issues, including scrapping of Article 370, Triple Talaq and the passage of Citizenship Amendment Bill. It also backed the contentious Delhi Services Bill in Parliament even as several Opposition leaders termed it unconstitutional.
However, following the debacle in the 2024 twin elections when the BJD failed to win a single seat in Lok Sabha and was reduced to 78 in Assembly, Naveen declared that the party would play the role of a strong and constructive opposition. The party’s nine MPs joined the Opposition’s walkout during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reply to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address in July 2024. It also accused the BJP of running ‘Operation Lotus’ in Odisha when two of its MPs resigned from Rajya Sabha only to return to the Upper House as saffron party members, amid a visible struggle to keep its flock together.
Last. month, two BJD leaders – former Rajya Sabha member Amar Patnaik and former Minister Sanjay Das Burma – attended the joint action committee meeting on delimitation convened by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin. Polictical observes had then said that it signalled the regional party’s stance towards the BJP.