Congress which may lose few numbers, but still not the edge in Rajya Sabha in 2016, is planning to add shrapnel to its arsenal by bringing at least two stalwarts– P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal –from the Congress-ruled Karnataka and Bihar to give tough time to Arun Jaitley.

The ruling BJP and combine is still far from getting a clear majority in the Upper House and the numbers won’t change any drastically. Besides leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and Jairam Ramesh, Congress feels dearth of frontline speakers to take on the treasury benches in the House.

As many as 75 seats are falling vacant this year. In 2017, only 10 seats are falling vacant, including six from West Bengal, and that will also not change the equations much. The Congress has 67 MPs in the 245-member House as against the BJP’s 48. While the Congress tally will be 60 at the end of 2016, the BJP will increase marginally to 54 at the most.

Six of the 12 retiring in April are from Congress, including former union ministers A K Antony, Ashwani Kumar and Dr M S Gill while others retiring are 2 each from BJP, Akali Dal and CPI(M). The position of Congress and BJP will not change, since, Antony and Ashwani will pull through while loss of Dr Gill from Punjab will be compensated in the Congress-ruled Himachal where BJP’s Bimla Kashyap Sood has no chance to win the contest for a single seat. Nor will Congress lose two seats in Assam and one in Kerala as it is in power in both the states.

The Congress worry is that its most vocal deputy leader Anand Sharma is to retire in July and the party will have to look for some other state to get him elected as he has no chance to get re-elected from the BJP-ruled Rajasthan. Other party stalwarts retiring this year include general secretary Ambika Soni, Oscar Fernandes, Jairam Ramesh and Mohsina Kidwai and Satish Sharma, Avinash Pande, Hanumantha Rao and Vijay Darda.

The BJP too will have to search for some other states to accommodate some of its leaders like Minister of state for parliamentary affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. Even after the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in April next year, there will be no scope for the BJP to gain even if it wins the elections since 11 seats are to be filled up this July and another 10 filled up before the Assembly elections, leaving only 10 seats to be filled in November 2020.

The Congress is planning to bring to the Upper House at least two stalwarts – P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal from Karnataka and Bihar respectively to give problems to Jaitley on a daily basis. In Maharashtra, four seats are falling vacant and the Congress has the strength to retain only one. Veterans like Sushil Kumar Shinde, Gurdas Kamat, Mukul Wasnik and Vilas Muttemwar are already in line. Four seats are falling vacant in Karnataka also, that will be able to accommodate Chidambaram, Oscar and two others from the Congress.