The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s good show in the Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly elections will hardly alter its seats in the Rajya Sabha. The BJP, along with its allies, is woefully short of a majority in the Upper House of Parliament. The party needs better numbers in the House to ensure passage of key Bills, but cannot hope for improved tally before mid-2016.

The Rajya Sabha currently has 242 MPs, with another three vacancies. These are from Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Haryana. The BJP can hope to get one of its members elected from Haryana after its stellar performance. The party is also confident of doing well in Jharkhand in the coming state polls. As for Haryana, another Rajya Sabha seat would fall vacant in mid-2016 when an Indian Lok Dal (INLD) member retires. Similarly, Maharashtra has 19 Rajya Sabha seats. But none of the MPs' terms would be over before mid-2016, when six, including BJP's Piyush Goyal and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Rout, would retire. One seat of Haryana and six of Maharashtra will be part of the 73 to fall vacant by mid-2016.

Currently, the BJP has 43 members in the Rajya Sabha. The tally of the NDA, that BJP leads, is 58 - allies Shiromani Akali Dal (3), Shiv Sena (3), Telugu Desam Party (6) and one each of Sikkim Democratic Front, Nagaland People's Front and Republican Party of India (A).

Among potential supporters, the Nationalist Congress Party has six MPs, Biju Janata Dal seven, INLD two, Bodo People's Front one and the AIADMK 11. Most of the current 10 nominated members and nine independents can be expected to support key government Bills. However, even with the support of these parties the NDA can manage only 104. The halfway mark in the 242 member house is 121.

It is unlikely that NDA can hope to get a majority on its own in the Rajya Sabha before 2018.