The Janata Dal (United)’s abrupt move to end its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar will marginally affect the latter’s strength in the Rajya Sabha, where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) tally will dip due to the loss of an alliance partner.

JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar resigned as chief minister of the NDA coalition government on Tuesday, and staked claim within hours to lead Bihar’s Grand Alliance, or Mahagathbandhan, along with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and smaller allies.

It is still not clear how Kumar’s move — he again took oath as Bihar’s chief minister on Wednesday afternoon — will impact Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh, a JD(U) member who was elected to the post with the support of the BJP. Singh has not indicated if he will step down.

While the BJP has 303 lawmakers in the Lok Sabha where the halfway mark is 272 and does not depend on its coalition partners to pass legislations, it is still some distance from the halfway mark in the 237-member Rajya Sabha. With 91 members, the BJP is the single largest party in the Upper House and often depends on NDA allies such as the four members of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and 18 MPs of two friendly parties —Biju Janata Dal and YSR Congress Party — for passage of key bills.

The JD(U) currently has five members in the Rajya Sabha and 16 in the Lok Sabha.

To be sure, despite not being the single largest party earlier in the Rajya Sabha, the BJP did manage to pass some contentious bills in the house. In 2019, it managed to draw support of some opposition parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to pass the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill that bifurcated the erstwhile state of J&K into two Union territories. The BJP also managed to shore up numbers for the controversial bill to outlaw triple talaq, which the JD(U) was opposed to.

The Congress-led Opposition bloc in the Rajya Sabha, which has been struggling to put up a joint front in the House, will now have the JD(U) on its side.

A senior JD(U) leader said the BJP has not broached the issue of Harivansh but underlined that he was elected with support of many parties that are not part of the NDA.

“Though his name was proposed by the BJP, he has been elected to the position with support from several parties which are not allies of the BJP, for instance the BJD and the Shiv Sena. We have to wait and watch,” the leader said, requesting anonymity.

Harivansh was elected for a second term in September 2020 after he beat RJD candidate Manoj Jha.