The 129 year-old Congress party has been shattered to its lowest score at 44 - way below the 10 per cent seats required to secure the party leader in the House the status of Leader of Opposition, along with Cabinet rank under the Salary and Allowances of the Leader of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977. This is a pathetic state of affairs for a party that has ruled the country for several decades.

Reading the writing on the wall, the Congress did not project its tall leader and scion of Nehru-Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi to lead the party in the House. The onus now fell upon the former Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge to lead the party in the house. To allow unanimous election of the BJP candidate Sumitra Mahajan as a Speaker of the Lok Sabha was a compulsion for the Opposition parties.

The Congress is, therefore, at the mercy of the Speaker whether or not to recognise Kharge as the Leader of the Opposition. It is clear from the mandate that no Leader of the Opposition will be able to get the status of the Leader of the Opposition alongwith the Cabinet rank.

However, three regional parties – AIADMK, BJD and Trinamool Congress are in consultations amongst themselves to form a bloc in the Lok Sabha and deny the Congress the Opposition space. The three parties would total up to 91 seats – AIADMK with 37 seats, BJD with 20 seats and Trinamool Congress with 34 seats. This may be a possibility as these three parties had earlier thought of forming a non-BJP, non-Congress Federal Front. The Trinamool Congress even insisted on forming a front minus the Left parties.

The Tamilnadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa and the Odisha Chief Minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and conveyed that their parties would play the role of “constructive Opposition” and lend issue-based support to the government. Both the chief ministers put up their demands on behalf their states before the prime minister. The West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee has, however, not yet opened her cards or met the prime minister.

Even if the Trinamool Congress does not go along with AIADMK and BJD, the tally of these two parties will 57- above the 44 figure for the Congress.

However, being comfortable in the Lok Sabha, the BJP-led NDA coalition need to play the game of arithmetic in the Upper House – Rajya Sabha. In the 245-member Rajya Sabha. BJP alone has a strength of 42 and alongwith its allies, TDP, Shiv Sena, Sikkim Democratic Front, Shiromani Akali Dal, Republican Party of India (A), Nagaland Peoples’Front and Mizo National Front the tally totals up to 58.

The Congress has 67 seats in Rajya Sabha and with its allies Bodoland Peoples’ Front, BSP, National Conference, JMM, Kerala Congress (M), Nationalist Congress Party, RJD and Samajwadi Party tally rises to 101. The Janata Dal (U) with its 9 members may go with the Congress in return for the support to its government in Bihar.

The NDA government with its assured strength of 58 will need to scout for support from AIADMK and BJD which have already declared to lend issue-based support. These two parties have a combined strength of 14 in Rajya Sabha. The Trinamool Congress has 12 seats in Rajya Sabha. The NDA government may have to seek support from DMK, INLD, TRS and Independents whose strength totals up to 16. There are 10 nominated members and the government seek support from some of them.

The Finance Bills will not be a problem for the government. The problem will be for other Bills to be passed by the Rajya Sabha. However, at present the 245-member Rajya Sabha has 13 vacancies. The government need to muster support from 117 MPs. In the name of development, it is not unlikely that the government will be getting support of some state parties for the passage of the Bills.

Even if Bills get held up in Rajya Sabha, joint sessions of the Parliament can be convened to clear them.

The game of arithmetic is tricky in politics of parliamentary democracy as practiced in this country. Preferences always do not follow a straight jacket course. If development is the concern of the people, no Opposition party can afford to bloc any development programme of the government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stunned his opponents and baiters by recording a historic win of 282 seats for BJP in the Lok Sabha. He decimated not only the Congress but also regional parties like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party. But his critics did not stop pointing fingers. They make hue and cry over BJP securing 31 per cent votes. They forget that no government that ruled the country since Independence secured 50 per cent votes or more. Does it mean they lacked peoples’ mandate to rule. Even Rajiv Gandhi who secured historic win for the Congress party in 1984-85 elections with record 404 seats secured below 50 per cent votes.

Situations have changed over time. The number of political parties have increased. In the last general elections 464 political parties contested – 6 national parties, 39 state parties and 419 unrecognized but registered parties. It is natural for votes to be divided. In Indian parliamentary practice, the party or the alliance that secure the majority in the Lok Sabha has the right to govern.

People voted for parties based on their poll manifestos and assurances. This time lowest number of independent candidates got elected – just 3. Out of total 83,41,01,479 registered voters, 55,38,01,801 casted their votes for 8,251 candidates in the fray. This time it was a record turnout of 66.40 per cent voters – 67.09 per cent male voters and 65.30 per cent female voters. The poll body had provided the option to voters to reject candidates by pressing the None Of The Above (NOTA) button. But only about one per cent of voters used this option
With the massive mandate the Modi government has won, it will be unwise for the Opposition to bloc any development programme of the government in Rajya Sabha. However debate and constructive criticism would definitely be in the interests of the nation.