New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, ever since it has come to power in 2014, has been bothered by the Rajya Sabha. This might be in large part due to the party not commanding a majority in this House, and also being averse to the concept of any checks and balances.Comments to insult eminent leaders who held membership of this House, such as former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh were par for the course. This despite Narendra Modi’s closest ally, Amit Shah having first entered parliament via Rajya Sabha.The first legislative defeat of the BJP in the past 12 years also came through the Rajya Sabha, as early as on March 3, 2015, when an amendment on the vote of thanks to the president’s address moved by Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP Sitaram Yechury and his colleague P. Rajeeve gathered enough votes and the amendment was passed.It embarrassed the Modi government, as the amendment was over corruption and black money. The Modi government failed to prevent the opposition from insisting on a division. This was only the fourth time in parliamentary history and the first embarassment in the BJP’s tenure. Those were early days, even as it basked in the glory of 282 MPs in the Lok Sabha.A consequence of the now failed three bills going through, would have immediately been the relative diminution of the Rajya Sabha. This has consequences for a vast, complex and diverse country which has two houses of parliament to be able to more fully provide representation to its many parts. Envisaged as a bi-cameral legislature, the Rajya Sabha serves a very crucial function as the “council of States”, the “House of Elders”.The Rajya Sabha has elections which are indirect, i.e., elected representatives, MLAs, elect its MPs.Rajya Sabha does not vote on money bills, like the Budget. But the Modi government, especially since 2016, tried to get important, non-money bills labelled money bills, so the Rajya Sabha’s assent would not be required for them to become law. The Aaadhar Act of 2016, amendments to the controversial Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Income Tax Act of 2025 were termed money bills, in order to escape scrutiny by the Rajya Sabha.The Supreme Court though, in the case of the Aadhaar bill, ended up upholding the validity of what the Modi government did, but the judgment was not unanimous. In his dissent note, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud termed its passage as an “abuse of the constitutional process”.If the Delimitation bills had been passed and India would have voted for the creation of a fresh 850-MP strong Lok Sabha, what implications would it have had on the balance between the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and how would that have affected the polity?The proposed Lok Sabha would have been 3.3 times the size of the Rajya Sabha. It is currently 2.2 times.In a joint session, held when important matters or thorny ones (such as the session called to scrap the controversial Prevention of Terror Activities or POTA) would be rendered meaningless, as the party running Lok Sabha would always be able to ram its bills through.This imbalance between the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, would also have an impact on elections to the offices of the President and the Vice-President. Each MP, of both Houses has an equal vote in both these elections. But just flooding the Lok Sabha and leaving the size of the Rajya Sabha unchanged, makes their vote next to meaningless.The Rajya Sabha is termed the ‘Council of States’ as the representation of states which constitute the Indian union. “It was meant to be the federal chambere, a House elected by the elected members of Assemblies of the States and Union Territories in which States were not given equal representation.” This term, ‘Council of States’ was announced by the chair in the House on the August 23, 1954.The Rajya Sabha has a provision for 12 nominated members, picked from eminent citizens, people of the arts, culture, literature or other aspects of public life, away from politics, to be able to impart important and useful perspectives to enrich and lift debates. These members are about getting people in, who may not be engaging in politics directly and not be able to fight and win a ‘direct election.’The chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Jagdeep Dhankhar made waves by his sudden and mysterious resignation last year, giving birth to a phrase, Dhankhared, meant to mean a person suddenly losing favour and taken out of the picture abruptly.Presently, BJP has the maximum number of MPs in this House but this is unlike its domination of Lok Sabha, which it was able to command for ten years, between 2014 and 2024. Of the Rajya Sabha’s 250 members, BJP currently has 106 MPs.