Ruling BJP hopes to improve its tally in Rajya Sabha as it is almost sure that a vacant seat from Gujarat, which was with the Congress, will go to the saffron brigade on the basis of higher number of seats in the State Assembly.

Of 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the State, BJP had eight against Congress's three till the beginning of April 2016. However,  the last month sitting Rajya Sabha MP from the State Pravin Rashtrapal passed away after a short illness, as result of which the seat became vacant.

The by-election of the vacant seat is slated on June 11, 2017. Already the ruling party has announced the name of its national vice-president Purushotam Rupala as candidate for the seat. In fact Rupala on Monday filed nomination for the seat. He filled the nomination form in presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, Gujarat BJP president Vijay Rupani and senior BJP leaders including Surendra Patel (Kaka), KC Patel, Parindu Bhagat, RC Faldu, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Ramanlal Vora etc. Earlier also Rupala was member of Rajya Sabha. He will now become member of the Upper House of Indian Parliament for the second time.

On the other hand Congress is in dilemma whether to file candidature for the seat or not which the ‘Grand Old Party’ used to occupy. Talking to The Pioneer Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) spokesman Manish Doshi said final decision on the candidature would be taken only after the consultation with the party high command.

Acknowledging the fact about the number of MlAs in State Assembly with the ruling party BJP (121), a senior Congress leader said that the ruling party would have upper hand in the by-poll and hence the result of the by-poll would be in favour of BJP.

With this development BJP's tally in Rajya Sahba from Gujarat will improve from eight to nine out of total 11 seats. As far as national picture in the Rajya Sabha is concern, of the total 245 seats BJP- led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is having 67 seats.  With one more seat goes to BJP, the saffron brigade would improve its tally to 50 and NDA would go up to 68.

Despite this, Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will have upper hand with 70 seats. Of the total UPA seats Congress is having lion's share of 64 seats.

Besides two major alliances, other parties are having 108 seats.