Polling was held on Saturday in the crucial election to 27 Rajya Sabha seats in seven states.
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In Uttar Pradesh, former Union Minister Kapil Sibal, up against a socialite backed by the BJP Preeti Mahapatra, had anxious moments as four Congress MLAs voted for BJP and Samajwadi Party candidates and the BSP refrained from transferring its extra votes to the Congress candidate.
Mr. Anand also blamed the former Chief Minister and said that barring one, all the rest 18 INLD legislators had cast vote in his favour, “but Hooda and party of the Congress have ditched”.
However, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) continues to be the single largest entity in the Upper House. “BJP, which has only 41 votes, is short of support for the independent candidate backed by it”, he said. But its first candidate and Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is sure of victory.
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.
Allum Veerabhadrappa, Ramappa Timmapur, Rizwan Arshadand Veena Achaiah of Congress, which has 122 members in the 225-member assembly, secured 33,33, 34 and 31 votes respectively. Basant Soren of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, who lost the polls, could muster only 26 votes despite having the backing of the entire opposition. The just concluded assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry may not affect the present polling as voting from those states will be held after a couple of years.
In Madhya Pradesh, where polls were conducted to three seats, BJP candidates MJ Akbar and Anil Dave won two seats while an independent Vivek Tankha with Congress’ support won the third. From 9am, Siddaramaiah and home minister G Parame-shwara were holed up in the CMO distributing chits to Con-gress MLAs telling them whom to vote for. The eight MLAs made a decision to vote against JD (S) saying state chief H D Kumaraswamy and national president H D Deve Gowda did not consult them while choosing a candidate, but discontent and disagreement has been simmering for a while.
Out of 57 Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant, voting will take place for only 27 seats today as 30 candidates were declared elected unopposed at the end of withdrawal of nominations on June 3.
Only two leaders from the Congress were authorised to see party votes – Mr. Surjewala himself and the Congress’ central observer Mr. Hariprasad.
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Each candidate need 58 votes to go to the Upper House of Parliament.
