Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 27: Cross-voting by Congress MLAs in Himachal Pradesh delivered the State’s lone seat to the BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan through a lottery despite the ruling party enjoying a comfortable majority in the 68-member state Assembly.
Himachal is one of the three states in the country being ruled by the Congress on its own.
Mr Mahajan defeated Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi. While both candidates got 34 votes each, Mahajan won in the tie-breaker round held with draw of lots. After the win, Harsh Mahajan said it’s the win of the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. In Shimla, Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur said it’s an historic win of the BJP.
Earlier, the incumbent chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had claimed that opposition leaders were obstructing the work of counting officials, and that “5-6 Congress MLAs were taken away in a convoy of the CRPF and Haryana Police.” The Chief Minister alleged the MLAs have been “kidnapped” and they have got the visuals. He added that people of the country and Himachal Pradesh will never accept “the murder of democracy.”
BJP has accused Mr Sukhu of violating the model code of conduct during the Rajya Sabha elections. Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur alleged that Mr Sukhu’s helicopter was sent to bring Congress MLA from Sudarshan Babloo from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, which he said, was in violation of the model code of conduct. He demanded that his vote should not be counted till a decision in this regard is taken by the election commission. Mr Babloo, who was the last to cast his vote, had fallen ill on Monday.
With the victory in the RS elections, the BJP has also claimed that the Congress government of Mr Sukhu had lost the majority in the House and demanded his resignation. Mr Jairam Thakur told reporters, “We are rightly saying that looking at this victory, the Himachal Pradesh CM should resign from his position…The MLAs have left him just within a year.”
The party sources said the BJP would move a no-confidence motion in the state Assembly on Thursday if Mr Sukhu did not submit his resignation till then.
Mr Singhvi after conceding defeat said, “I will like to thank 9 MLAs who cross-voted, they have taught me a lot about human nature, its fickleness or its resoluteness. They supped with us…So, I think we are bad judges of human character, they (BJP) are obviously better judges of human character.”
With the Congress dispensation in Himachal Pradesh under threat following cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha election, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge slammed the BJP saying democracy would be “destroyed” if the Centre’s ruling party continues to bring down elected governments. Kharge said they would challenge the election as both the candidates got 34 votes each and the decision was taken on the basis of a lottery.
“If the government breaks an elected government, what democracy is it. It has happened earlier in Karnataka, Manipur, Goa. When they do not get elected, they take measures, intimidate them and break the government. Is this democracy?” Kharge asked. “Why they are doing this, I fail to understand. If they continue to do this, they will end democracy and demolish democracy and put the Constitution aside,” the Congress president said, adding that if they do such things by “force,” then this cannot continue like this in the country.