On the instruction of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her political secretary Ahmed Patel and AICC observer to Haryana Hari Prasad have been contacting various people, including Anand, Hooda, state party chief Ashok Tanwar and legislative party leader Kiran Choudhry.
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In fact, state unit president HD Kumaraswamy had earlier accused the Congress leaders and BJP state president BS Yedyurappa of having a secret pact with the rebel members to defeat the party.
The Election Commission (EC) on Monday sought a report from the Returning Officer in the Rajya Sabha polls after the Congress alleged misuse of state machinery to defeat R.K. Anand, a candidate backed by it, and demanded cancellation of the election. He BJP was not only looking to gain seats in the Rajya Sabha, but also limit the number of seats the Congress could retain. Maintaining that 12 Congress MLAs were deliberately given a different pen to cast their votes, Anand’s petition said: “This voting pattern could not have happened except with deep-rooted conspiracy of the ruling party in active participation of some officials of Vidhan Sabha to hijack and rig the election in favour of BJP-supported candidate…”
BJP supported candidate for Rajya Sabha, Zee Media Chairman Subhash Chandra and Indian National Lok Dal & Congress supported candidate for Rajya Sabha RK Anand, during polling in Chandigarh on Saturday.
BJP candidates polled 58 votes each while the Congress candidate polled 62 votes.
Hariprasad said he, being agent of the party during the polls, had seen votes of all but one MLA. On Saturday, 14 Congress MLAs’ votes were rejected as they used a wrong pen to mark their choice. “It is a big conspiracy to wipe out Constitution and election process”, he said.
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It said when ballot papers are provided to the voting MLAs, pens should have been made available to each of them with instruction to use that pen only while casting the vote, which was not done. When asked by reporters whether Hooda did not vote, Hariprasad retorted, “Who told you that Hooda did not vote? There was no point of Jai Prakash going there (inside the booth) again (twice)… after two of our MLAs cast their votes, he (Jai Prakash) went there again and changed the pen”, Anand claimed. While BJP leaders Anil Madhav Dave and MJ Akbar won their seats on expected lines, the Congress’s Vivek Tankha was declared elected against the third vacancy.
