The BJP-led NDA won 10 Rajya Sabha seats out of the 15 for which voting was held across three states on Tuesday, scoring a moral victory over I.N.D.I.A whose candidates faced shock defeats due to cross-voting. While the NDA benefitted from cross voting in Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh and BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, it suffered a setback in Karnataka where a party MLA supported the Congress nominee.
In the process of winning the tightly contested lone RS seat in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP virtually managed to demonstrate that the Congress government had slipped into minority with 9 cross-votes being cast in favour of the saffron outfit’s candidate.
Like on earlier occasions, the current Rajya Sabha elections in the three states turned out to be an opportunity for the BJP to expose cracks in the rival camp and winning support for its nominees from members of the rival INDI Alliance parties, including Congress and Samajwadi Party.
By the end of the day, the BJP seemed to have emerged stronger from the RS polling as its floor management gave it an upper hand in mind games just weeks ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
During voting for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, seven Samajwadi Party legislators were involved in cross voting. In the final count, the BJP won 8 RS seats while the SP won 2 seats, including Jaya Bachchan and Ramji Lal Suman. Alok Ranjan of the SP lost to the eight BJP candidate Sanjay Seth.
In a setback for the SP, Maharaji Prajapati, party MLA from Amethi, did not vote. According to sources, those SP MLAs who voted for the BJP include Rakesh Pandey, Abhay Singh, Rakesh Pratap Singh, Manoj Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi, Pooja Pal and Ashutosh Maurya. One MLA of SBSP and one of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party voted for the BJP. In all, 395 votes were cast out of the total 396 votes. Earlier in the morning, the SP received a setback when, ahead of elections, the party’s chief whip, Manoj Pandey, resigned.
The BJP – with 252 seats, as well as 18 from allies – had fielded eight candidates. The SP – which has 108 MLAs – fielded three. The BJP only had votes to fill seven seats, but banked upon votes from the Jayant Chaudhary-led Rashtriya Lok Dal to register upset wins.
For the lone RS seat in Himachal Pradesh, nine legislators, including six from the ruling Congress and three independents, cross-voted, raising questions about the stability of the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government.
For the sole Rajya Sabha seat the Congress fielded Abhishek Manu Singhvi and the BJP named Harsh Mahajan. The Congress had a clear majority with 40 out of 68 MLAs and the support of three independent MLAs. Despite the fact that the BJP, with 25 MLAs, was far behind in the number game, it forced a contest by fielding ex-Congress MLA Mahajan against Singhvi. The scores were tied at 34-34 in the House for 68 legislators, leaving the matter to be settled through a draw of lots in favour of Mahajan.
Sources said Singhvi was seen as an outsider by some Congress MLAs who backed the BJP candidate. The six Congress legislators who went against the party whip were also reportedly unhappy with ill-treatment by the party despite their seniority in the outfit.
Interestingly, six MLAs from the hill states were spotted in Haryana’s Panchkula in the evening, claiming that they were there for excursion. Sukhu, however, claimed they had been escorted to Panchkula by central security forces.
Addressing the media after his defeat, Singhvi congratulated Mahajan but asked the BJP to introspect why it fielded an RS candidate despite having just 25 MLAs against in a 68-member House in which the Congress has 40 MLAs. He, in a veiled manner, slammed the BJP for engineering cross-voting in the RS polls. In Karnataka, he ruling Congress in registered victory on three seats in the Rajya Sabha elections while the BJP managed to win one. All three Congress candidates from Karnataka, Ajay Maken, Dr Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrashekhar registered victories. Ajay Maken got 47 votes, while both Dr Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrashekhar received a total of 46 votes each.
In a setback to the BJP-JD(S) alliance, BJP MLA S.T. Somashekar voted for the Congress during the Rajya Sabha elections.
However, BJP nominee Narayansa Bandage managed to secure victory. Somashekar’s vote in favour of the Congress proved fatal for the BJP-JDS candidate Kupendra Reddy. The Congress has 134 MLAs, while the BJP has 66 and the JDS 19. The Congress also claims the support of two independent lawmakers.
Before the voting in three states on Tuesday, a total of 41 seats in the upper house were filled unopposed. The list of new MPs includes former Congress boss Sonia Gandhi, BJP boss JP Nadda, and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan, as well as Maharashtra strongman and former Congress leader Ashok Chavan who has now joined the BJP.
Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by MLAs through the proportional representation process with the single transferable vote (STV) system.
