The Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh today saw cross-voting by a BJP MLA while another party legislator claimed that she was prevented from voting. “Right now it can not be said, as all the things need to become clear as to what really happened”.
Advertisement
Naqvi, the Union Minister of State for Minority and Parliamentary Affairs and party leader Mahesh Poddar won the two seats, election for which was held during the day.
Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and BJP vice president OP Mathur and two other party nominees were today elected to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan in the elections in which Congress-backed independent candidate Kamal Morarka was defeated.
However, the votes of 14 MLAs were found invalid because of the use of the wrong ink, the returning officer said, without naming any party. The INLD had nominated lawyer RK Anand for this seat, and to prevent the BJP from taking it, the Congress had thrown its weight behind Anand, upsetting former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Leader of Opposition Rameshwar Dudi was the first to cast his vote, followed by Congress MLAs, and subsequently by BJP MLAs, who were brought directly to the Assembly from the hotel where they were kept for the past couple of days.
The defeat of Anand came as a bolt from the blue for the Congress and its high command, which was confident that its strategy to trounce Chandra would succeed.
“BJP has been trying to politically destabilize the state, this is a victory against it”. BJP has 160 members in the House, followed by 24 of the Congress, four of NPP and three of BSP. “I am sure the general secretary concerned will look into the reasons of invalidity of the Congress votes”, he said. However, it remains to be seen whether there will be cross voting against Sibal.
In Madhya Pradesh, BJP candidates Anil Madhav Dave and MJ Akbar and Congress nominee Vivek Tankha got elected to the upper house.
On Thursday evening, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi and his colleague A K Joti met to review the factual report sent by the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer on the sting videos that purportedly showed some MLAs of JD (S), Congress and a few Independent legislators, including Khuba, being offered bribes for their votes.
Pulling off a dramatic win to bag the second Rajya Sabha seat from Haryana falling vacant in August, media baron Subhash Chandra tonight said these biennial polls had become BJP versus the rest affair.
There are three candidates in the elections for two Rajya Sabha seats from Jharkhand, making it a bitter fight. In Uttarakhand too, the Congress’ Pradeep Tamta won comfortably. Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal gave four first preference votes to him.
BJP also threw its weight behind Mr Gotia.
Advertisement
In Rajasthan, the ruling BJP won all four seats, which was expected given its unassailable numerical strength in the assembly.
