Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 10: Negating all speculations, the Congress managed to keep its flock together and clinched all the three seats to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan with one seat going to the BJP.
Speculations were rife that the independent candidate supported by the BJP, the media baron Subhash Chandra, who was elected last time from Haryana, could engineer cross-voting from the Congress ranks taking advantage of dissatisfaction among a section of the MLAs because all the three candidates nominated by the party were “outsiders” with none belonging to Rajasthan.
However, the results proved that not one vote of the ruling group, including the Congress and smaller parties and independents supporting the Congress has gone to the second BJP candidate. Chandra lost the elections securing only 30 votes which was exact number of the excess votes of the BJP after electing its official nominee Ghanshyam Tiwari.
Two of the Congress victorious candidates, however, secured excess votes than allocated, Randeep Singh Surjewala, who hails from Haryana, secured 43 votes, two more than the 41 first preference votes required to get elected, and Mukul Wasnik, who hails from Maharashtra, polled 42 votes while Pramod Tiwari, who is from Uttar Pradesh secured the required number of 41 votes. The BJP’s Ghanshyam Tiwari had also secured 43 votes. One vote was rejected.
The closely watched contest marked with cross-voting and defections — was held on 16 seats across four states, while 41 candidates from 11 states were elected unopposed. The elections in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Haryana evoked considerable interests amidst complaints and counter-complaints of horse trading as the contesting parties fielded more candidates than the number of seats available.
Congratulating the winners, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot tweeted, “It was clear from the beginning that the Congress had the required majority for all three seats. But BJP tried horse trading by fielding an independent.” “The solidarity of our MLAs has given a befitting reply to this effort. The BJP will face a similar defeat in the 2023 assembly elections as well,” he added..
Counting is over in Karnataka where Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh have secured 46 votes each. The final results are yet to be declared officially.
In Haryana, the BJP sought cancellation of the votes of two Congress members. The party alleged that the two Congress MLAs showed their ballot papers to unauthorised persons after marking them. Congress’s Ajay Maken also wrote to the Election Commission, alleging the ruling BJP’s objection of code violation was false and frivolous.
In Maharashtra, both the BJP and the Shiv Sena have met the Election Commission, alleging cross voting and seeking disqualification of votes. There is no clarity when the counting will begin. In Karnataka, counting got held up initially after the polling agent of Congress’s Jairam Ramesh filed a complaint with the Election Commission to disqualify the vote of HD Revanna, saying he had revealed his vote to Congress’s DK Shivakumar.
The polls were held to fill 57 vacant seats across 15 states. The maximum seats, 11, are located in Uttar Pradesh. It is followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (6 each), Bihar (5), Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh (4 each), Madhya Pradesh and Odisha (3 each) Punjab, Jharkhand, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Telangana (2 each) and one seat from Uttarakhand.
As voting ended for two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana this evening, the ruling BJP sought the cancellation of votes cast by Congress MLAs Kiran Choudhary and BB Batra, alleging that they showed their preference of votes to several people other than the party agent, in violation of secrecy.
Soon after the last vote was cast around 5 pm, a BJP delegation of Union ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Jitendra Singh met with the election officer with their complaint. The poll returning officer, however, said there was no violation in voting. “I have seen the videography very carefully and found that there was no breach of privacy or secrecy of the ballot paper,” said the officer. Of the total 90 members of the House, 89 cast their votes, officials said at the end of the polling. Independent legislator Balraj Kundu abstained from voting.
The BJP fielded former minister Krishan Lal Panwar and former Union minister Ajay Maken was the Congress candidate. Media baron Kartikeya Sharma contested as an Independent backed by the BJP. Both KL Panwar and Kartikeya Sharma wrote to the Election Commission alleging that the two Congress MLAs had shown their ballot papers to “unauthorised persons” after marking them.