NEW DELHI: NDA gained a clear lead over the opposition for the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman’s election with Biju Janata Dal likely to support the ruling coalition’s nominee, Janata Dal (U) MP Harivansh. While BJD will be a decisive factor in the outcome, NDA has mustered the support of 116 MPs in the Upper House. With BJD’s nine MPs and unattached MP Amar Singh, it will be home and dry in a House with an effective strength of 244 and the halfway mark of 123.

BJP managers are targeting a tally of 125-128 votes. Without BJD, NDA’s tally is a shade short of UPA and regional parties which stands at 118. The opposition met to discuss possibilities and decided to ask Congress to nominate a candidate to contest against NDA after no regional party agreed to put up a nominee. BJD boss and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik is understood to have told NCP’s Sharad Pawar that since UPA had not approached him, he had conveyed his support to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar .

Expectations that NCP’s Vandana Chavan could be a candidate, a bid to get Shiv Sena to back her on grounds of being from Maharashtra , did not materialise with party leaders expressing disinterest in doing so. Other names did not fly, and the death of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi created uncertainty over the presence of the party’s four MPs when the vote is cast on Thursday.

Nitish spoke with Patnaik and this led to expectations BJD will back NDA even though there was no formal announcement. BJD’s parliamentary group is awaiting word from the party chief. The support of AIADMK’s 13 and TRS’s six MPs was, however, in the bag for NDA. The opposition’s moves to put up a candidate floundered and parties like Trinamool dropped its preference for a non-Congress candidate.

The possibility of putting up a losing candidate fell to Congress which seemed keen to make a political point by forcing a vote. It will announce its nominee on Wednesday. There is speculation that the party may field a Dalit or an OBC. BJP managers said the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman was usually a ruling party nominee and the numbers had turned in NDA’s favour.

They said Congress was being confrontational over a “sober” candidate like Harivansh and the vote would only prove that the opposition’s perceived advantage in the Upper House had been overcome by NDA. NDA sources said Harivansh would file his nomination papers on Wednesday.

There were suggestions that even Trinamool was not in favour of opposing the JD(U) candidate, perhaps indicating that party chief Mamata Banerjee did not want to directly confront Nitish’s party. BJP members also reached out to Shiromani Akali Dal, smarting over its MP Naresh Gujral’s name being floated and then passed over. Not supporting NDA, it was pointed out, would only compromise the Akalis in a fight with their chief rival Congress.

