All 9 BJP candidates win nail-biting contest in UP
NEW DELHI: Winning 12 out of 26 seats across seven states, the BJP increased its strength in the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
It also won nine seats in the key battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, including one in a nailbiting contest against a combined opposition candidate from the BSP. Finance minister Arun Jaitley, BJP spokesman GVL Narasimha Rao and actress-politician Jaya Bachchan of the Samajwadi Party (SP) were the prominent winners in Uttar Pradesh.
The Election Commission had in February announced vacancies for 59 seat in 17 states, and 33 candidates in 10 states were elected unopposed. Elections were held in 26 seats in seven states on Friday. In all, the BJP won 28 seats, which is a gain of 11 seats in the Upper House where the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is a minority. The gains came mainly from Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP won a three-fourths majority in assembly elections last year. The Congress won nine seats and suffered a loss of five seats.
“Congratulations to all those elected to the Rajya Sabha from various states and best wishes for their Parliamentary career. I hope they effectively voice the aspirations of the states they will represent,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter.
All eyes had been on UP, where the BJP secured a clear victory in eight out of 10 seats and Samajwadi Party in one.
But the contest for the tenth seat saw cross-voting by members of the BSP and SP and was decided by counting of the second preference votes of legislators.
NEWDELHI: There was high drama in some states where Rajya Sabha polls were held on Friday as contending parties cried foul over claims of cross-voting and in some cases “double voting”. Counting got delayed in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Jharkhand and started only after specific directions from the Election Commission (EC).
Polling in UP witnessed daylong intrigue, allegations of irregularities and cross-voting as it went down to the wire for the 10th seat before the BJP’s Anil Agrawal trounced BSP-SP-Congress alliance’s Bhimrao Ambedkar. Agarwal got 16 first preference votes while Ambedkar got 32 first preference votes. Agarwal had more second preference votes but Ambedkar did not get second preference votes. In all, BJP won nine seats and SP one of the 10 seats that went to polls.
The BJP winners were: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, Ashok Bajpai, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sakal Deep Rajbhar, Kanta Kardam, Anil Jain, Harnath Singh Yadav, GVL Narasimha Rao, and Anil Agarwal. For SP, Jaya Bachchan won.
There was drama in Karnataka as well where Congress won three seats and BJP one. A total of 188 legislators out of the 225 voted and four of these votes were set aside. As a result, each candidate required 37 votes to sail through.
This was because only two Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs cast their vote as the party decided to boycott the polls after two Congress MLAs were issued two ballot papers after they cast their vote to the wrong candidate. Those votes were subsequently set aside by the EC.
BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar received the highest number of 50 votes. GC Chandrasekhar of the Congress received 46 votes, his partymen L Hanumanthaiah and Syed Naseer Hussain received 44 and 42 votes, respectively.
The seven rebel JD(S) candidates, set to join Congress on Sunday in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi, appear to have voted for Congress, s the JD(S) candidate BM Farook got only two votes. Jharkhand too reported allegations of cross-voting and sabotage as BJP and Congress bagged one seat each.
While BJP’s Sameer Uraon was the clear winner, Congress candidate Dhiraj Prasad Sahu snatched victory from BJP’s second candidate Pradeep Kumar Sonthalia by a fraction of value of votes, after taking into consideration second preference votes of three BJP legislators.
The official announcement by EC was, however, awaited as the BJP raised objection over a ballot and demanded recounting. Two votes were rejected during the counting and the total valid votes stood at 78 of the 80 legislators who exercised their franchise.
In West Bengal, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had a smooth sailing when Trinamool MLAs, including CM Mamata Banerjee, voted for him. With numbers on their side, the four TMC candidates — Nadimul Haque, Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Dr Santunu Sen — got elected without any hitch.