Counting of votes is put on hold in Maharashtra and Haryana over objections raised by the BJP and other parties
Counting of votes is put on hold in Maharashtra and Haryana over objections raised by the BJP and other parties
The Congress has won three Rajya Sabha seats and the BJP one in Rajasthan on Friday. Congress candidates Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari have been declared elected, while BJP’s Ghanshyam Tiwari won the fourth seat. BJP-backed independent candidate Subhash Chandra was defeated.
As party leaders kept an anxious watch, legislators from four states queued up to vote in 16 MPs to the Rajya Sabha on Friday with some being ferried from resorts they had been sequestered in amid fears of poaching by rivals.
The high-stakes race to the Upper House acquired urgency with the number of candidates exceeding the seats going to the polls in Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Polling started at 9 a.m. and continued till 4 p.m.
Counting of votes is put on hold in Maharashtra and Haryana over objections raised by the BJP and other parties.
Counting delayed in Maharashtra
The counting in Maharashtra was delayed on Friday evening after the BJP raised objections to the votes cast by three MLAs of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), alleging violation of rules. The MVA too has approached the Election Commission demanding two votes of the BJP be declared invalid. The MVA has raised objection over the vote of BJP MLA Sudhir Mungantiwar and BJP-affiliated-independent Ravi Rana.
The counting has been held up, a State legislature official said.
“Cabinet Ministers Jitendra Awhad (NCP), Yashomati Thakur (Congress) and Sena legislator Suhas Kande violated the model code for voting. We have filed an appeal before the Election Commission of India, seeking that their votes be held invalid,” said a State BJP leader.
BJP alleged that Mr. Awhad and Ms. Thakur handed over their ballots to their party agents instead of only showing them the ballots, while Mr. Kande showed his ballot to two different agents.
“Permission is needed from the election commission for the counting. Officials have sent an email to the ECI seeking the permission. It should be granted in some time,” said Sena Minister Eknath Shinde.
“Counting can not be started until the ECI gives its decision because winning quota can not be determined till the number of valid votes is finalized,” said a constitutional expert.
In Maharashtra, seven candidates are in the fray for six seats in what is the first time in more than two decades that there is an electoral contest for the Rajya Sabha polls.
A close contest is being played out between the state’s ruling Shiv Sena and the opposition BJP for the sixth seat. The contest is primarily between BJP’s Dhananjay Mahadik and the Sena’s Sanjay Pawar.
The ruling MVA – Shiv Sena, NCP, Congress – had kept their MLAs in different hotels and resorts in Mumbai till they left for the state assembly just before polling began.
The Assembly is the electoral college for the biennial elections..
The Election Commission has appointed special observers and ordered videography of the entire exercise.
Elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently. All 41 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were declared elected unopposed last Friday.
This left 16 seats in four states for which elections were necessitated – six in Maharashtra, four each in Karnataka and Rajasthan and two in Haryana.
Prominent among those in the fray are Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Congress candidates Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh and Mukul Wasnik, and Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut. All are expected to win without a hiccup.
In Maharashtra, the total votes have come down from 288 to 285 — there is a vacancy due to the death of Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke and the courts rejected pleas by minister Nawab Malik and former minister Anil Deshmukh seeking a day’s bail to cast their vote. In Karnataka, too, there is suspense over the fourth seat with three parties – BJP, Congress and JD-S — in contention.
Despite not having the numbers to win the fourth seat, all three fielded candidates for the seat, forcing an election.
The six candidates in the fray are Ms. Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh and outgoing MLC Lehar Singh Siroya from the BJP, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh and state general secretary Mansoor Ali Khan from the Congress, and former MP D Kupendra Reddy from the JD(S).
The fight for the fourth seat will see a direct contest between Mr. Siroya, Mr. Khan and Mr. Reddy.
As these elections have an open ballot system, every MLA (voter) has to show their ballot paper to their designated party agents. Worried about cross-voting, the JD-S had shifted its legislators to a hotel on Thursday night. Its Kolar MLA K Srinivas Gowda has already declared he will vote for the Congress candidate.
Haryana
The tension carried over to Haryana, where Congress had tucked away its MLAs in the Chhattisgarh capital Raipur and the ruling BJP-JJP its flock, including some Independents, at a luxury hotel in Chandigarh.
After landing in Chandigarh, Congress legislators gathered at the home of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and moved together to cast their votes.
The BJP has fielded former minister Krishan Lal Panwar, while Ajay Maken, a former Union minister, is the Congress nominee. Media baron Kartikeya Sharma has entered the fray as an Independent.
While the BJP with 40 MLAs in the 90-member Haryana Assembly has nine more than the 31 first preference votes required for a straight win, the contest has become keen for the second seat with Mr. Sharma’s entry.
Mr. Sharma has the backing of the BJP-JJP combine, most Independents, as well one MLA each from the Haryana Lokhit Party and the INLD.
The Congress has 31 members in the 90-member Assembly, just enough to help its candidate win a seat. Its prospects could be in jeopardy in case of cross-voting. The BJP has 40 MLAs while its ally has 10 legislators. The Indian National Lok Dal and Haryana Lokhit Party have one each and seven are independents.
The Election Commission has appointed special observers and ordered videography of the entire exercise.
