NDA sails through inhousebattle How ruling coalition clinched it Failed bid to get BJD on board began Oppn slide
NEWDELHI: A back-of-the-envelope calculation of the house strength, man-to-man marking, a team to execute the plan, a set of phone calls, and the collective efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar helped the ruling National Democratic Alliance pull off an easy victory in the election for the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman’s post on Thursday, three leaders familiar with the matter said.
The ruling alliance is short of a majority in the upper house, but the July 20 vote in the Lok Sabha, where the government (which is in a majority in that house) defeatedtheopposition’sno-trust motion decisively, aided by the abstention of key regional parties, raised hopes that it could hope for the support of the same parties in the Rajya Sabha too.
Once a decision was taken about two weeks back that the election to the deputy chairman’s post would take place in the current session, the BJP’S floor leaders in Parliament got into the act immediately. The aim was straightforward: ensure the NDA stayed together; get as many noncommittal parties on to the ruling side; and ensure that those who could not vote for the NDA abstained .
Shah then picked a team of six union ministers, rail and finance minister Piyush Goyal, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar, petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, health minister J P Nadda, and minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi , and a set of BJP office bearers — general secretaries Bhupendra Yadav, Ram Madhav and Anil Jain — to work with the objective of securing a win.
Each member of the team had specific assignments to reach out to selected parties that were not aligned to the Congress or were not part of the United Progressive Alliance, the first leader added. For instance, Sitharaman and Nadda spoke to the leadership of Telangana Rashtra Samiti and secured the support of its six MPS for NDA candidate, the second leader said. Nadda and Ananth Kumar remained in touch with the AIADMK, which has 13 MPS, and ensured that they voted for the NDA candidate. The AIADMK had voted against the opposition’s no-trust vote in the Lok Sabha as well.
Modi and Shah themselves spoke to Odisha CM and BJD leader Naveen Patnaik, who was a key swing force. A BJD leader said, “We did not have much at stake in this election. And a friendly centre suits us.” Nitish Kumar too spoke to Patnaik. A JD (U) leader who asked not to be identified claimed that Kumar and Patnaik share a warm personal equation, that they met recently in Bhubaneswar, and that the JD(U) had always demanded a Bharat Ratna for Naveen Patnaik’s father Biju Patnaik. Shah and Sitharaman dealt with the YSR Congress.
Poll strategist Prashant Kishore, who worked with Nitish Kumar in the past and is now associated with YSR Congress Party, was also pressed into service to soften the party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, said the third leader familiar with the development.
The YSR Congress Party, which had earlier announced support for Congress candidate, did not take part in the vote.
Two MPS of the Peoples Democratic Party of Mehbooba Mufti, a former ally of the BJP, abstained from the vote after Ram Madhav and Pradhan spoke to the party’s leadership.
“The PDP was in a mood to support the Congress, but we managed to convince it to abstain,” another BJP leader familiar with the discussions between the two parties said.
The PDP was approached by the JD(U) separately, the JD(U) leader added. Goyal and Pradhan were even deputed to talk to bitter rival AAP, the first leader said. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, too, spoke to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday night.
The Delhi CM, however, made it clear that AAP could not support the NDA and if Rahul Gandhi did not seek its support, it would sit it out. On Thursday, three MPS of AAP abstained from vote, bringing down the number of votes for Congress candidate BK Hariprasad. NEW DELHI: Opposition parties failed to get their act together to win the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman’s election in a a highly anticipated face-off with the ruling NDA on Thursday, and in the process squandered an opportunity to win a few additional votes in favour of their common candidate. For the past month, all calculations by the anti-nda camp had indicated that it would need the support of Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal to win the election. Yet, Nationalist Congress Party was asked to reach out to Panaik at the last moment. By the time he did, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar had already spoken to Patnaik and secured the BJD’S support for NDA candidate Harivansh, who emerged victorious.
Other things went wrong, too. Opposition leaders were scheduled to hold a second meeting at 6 pm on Tuesday. But at 3.30 pm, Pawar met senior opposition leaders to say that neither Patnaik nor the Shiv Sena, a Bharatiya Janata Party ally, would support an opposition candidate Under the circumstances, Pawar was not keen on his party’s Vandana Chavan contesting the election as the Opposition nominee. Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party were reluctant to throw their hat in the ring.
Some leaders suggested that a candidate of the Telugu Desam Party, which pulled out of the NDA earlier this year, contest the post. “TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu had already communicated his willingness and CM Ramesh, who defeated Harivansh in the Public Accounts Committee election a day ago, was ready,” a senior opposition leader said on condition of anonymity. The Congress didn’t warm up to the idea of a TDP candidate, according to two senior leaders. Had the TDP fielded a candidate, at least the Aam Admi Party would have voted in his favour , said another senior strategist. A floor manager from a regional party added, “A day ago, Ramesh was supported by the Opposition camp in the Public Accounts Committee election and he won. The same formula could have been repeated here.”
To make matters worse, Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP said publicly that Congress president Rahul Gandhi must talk to the Delhi CM if the party wanted its support for the Congress nominee and joint opposition candidate BK Hariprasad. No opposition leader found Gandhi at fault for not responding to Kejriwal’s demand. Gandhi couldn’t have been expected to accept such a public demand, said one regional party leader. “Other senior Congress leaders did try to speak to Kejriwal. But it didn’t help,” this person said. Some opposition leaders suggested that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee speak to Patnaik, Kejriwal and Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao. But when Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’brien communicated the suggestion to Banerjee, she refused to get involved. On Thursday, Hariprasad didn’t sound dejected hours after the poll result was out. “We might have lost the battle but we have won the war. The Opposition stood united while the election exposed the hidden agenda of the BJD. Also remember that no major UPA (United Progressive Alliance) partners ditched us,” he told HT.