The Congress party may seek explanation from Haryana party leaders after the votes of 14 of its MLAs were declared invalid in the state’s Rajya Sabha polls on Saturday.
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The party is alleging that there was deliberate fraud in the election by switching the pen meant for marking the votes so as to make the Congress votes invalid.
In Haryana, BJP candidate Choudhry Birendra Singh and independent Subhash Chandra stood victorious in a high velocity counting.
“Action will be taken against them (rebels) in accordance with the provisions in the party’s constitution”, Babu asserted.
Although all 17 votes of the Congress were to go to Mr Anand, at the end only three – that of Kuldeep Bishnoi, his wife Renuka and Kiran Chaudhary went to him, leading to his loss.
As the Rajya Sabha polls are held with an open ballot system, every voter has to show the ballot paper to the respective party’s official agent before casting the vote. Another key independent from the state is lawyer RK Anand, who is likely to be supported by opposition INLD and Congress parties. “I can say with firm belief that a conspiracy was hatched to enable victory of BJP-backed candidate (media baron Subhash Chandra)”, Hooda told reporters here. Congress people voted (to the right candidate), it was the conspiracy of the RSS-BJP. The independent candidate fielded by the BJP received the remainder of the votes of BJP MLAs and also 2 votes of the independent MLAs totaling 50 votes.
Only two leaders from the Congress were authorised to see party votes – Mr. Surjewala himself and the Congress’ central observer Mr. Hariprasad.
Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) candidate B.M. Farooq failed to get the required votes to win the contest for the third seat, as seven of its 40 lawmakers in the state legislative assembly “cross voted” in favour of Ramamurthy, defying the party’s whip.
Fourteen of Congress’ votes in Rajya Sabha elections in Haryana on Saturday were rejected apparently because the MLAs concerned registered their votes with a pen other than the one provided by the Returning Officer, INLD claimed.
“We will know the reasons in days to come how these two parties-the Congress and INLD, which do not see eye to eye, suddenly chose to join hands”, Chandra said. “Out of 14 rejected votes, 12 were due to unathorised makings used, one was blank and another was rejected during polls”, he said.
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Srinivasamurthy (Pulakeshinagar). These MLAs had openly announced that they are going to vote for the Congress candidates.
