Abstention, invalidation and cross-vote: Decoding loss of Cong’s Maken in Hry
CHANDIGARH: The upset caused by BJP backed independent candidate, Kartikeya Sharma in the Rajya Sabha elections for the two seats from Haryana did not come without help from the Congress.
While the BJP candidate Krishan Lal Panwar won comfortably securing 36 first preference votes, Kartikeya romped home despite getting 23 first preference votes as against 29 first preference votes of Congress candidate, Ajay Maken.
Election officials said that Panwar needed 30 votes to win and his six-plus votes were transferred to Kartikeya Sharma (who was the second preference in all 36) who edged out Maken. Maken did not get any second preference votes, and Sharma was declared the winner.
Since all 31 Congress MLAs voted on Friday, Maken should have won the second Upper House seat comfortably. However, it was not to be. Congress MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi is believed to have switch sides to vote for Kartikeya while the ballot of another Congress legislator was declared invalid for being marked improperly.
On Saturday, Kuldeep Bishnoi retweeted journalist Sudhir Bishnoi’s tweet: “A decision taken at the right time is what separates a man from the crowd.”
Congress Legislature Party leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that he did not know whose vote was declared invalid. Hooda said that a report in this regard will be sent to the party high command by party observers and action will be initiated against Bishnoi.
Congress in charge for Haryana, Vivek Bansal who was the party’s authorised agent on being asked as to whose vote was declared invalid said that he could not spot it when the ballots were being shown to him by the party MLAs during the polling. “I could spot that Kuldeep Bishnoi has cross voted and shouted about it. But a tick was put on the ballot paper by one of the MLAs making it invalid and it missed my eye. I am quite shocked and trying to figure out where things went wrong.’
Three candidates – BJP’s Krishan Lal Panwar, Congress nominee, Maken and BJP-JJP backed Independent candidate, Kartikeya Sharma – were in the fray for the two Upper House seats from Haryana. Kartikeya Sharma is the son of former Congress minister, Venod Sharma and son-in-law of Congress leader, Kuldeep Sharma.
A total of 89 out of 90 MLAs cast their vote on Friday. Independent MLA from Meham, Balraj Kundu abstained from voting. Since one vote was declared invalid, the total number of votes came down to 88.
Some local Congress leaders opposed to Hooda will likely target the former chief minister now. “He is the CLP leader and now also controls the state unit . The Congress MLAs were taken to Chhattisgarh and given training to cast their votes. Now, someone making a tick instead of inscribing 1 on the ballot paper seems quite deliberate,’’ said a party leader.
Haryana chief minister ML Khattar said that Congress MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi heard the “voice of his inner soul”. “He must have done this only after being impressed by the policies of PM Narendra Modi and his government. Bishnoi has heard the voice of his inner soul to connect with the emotion of the nation,’’ Khattar said, indicating that the Congress MLA may quit the Congress and join the BJP.
Khattar added that the Congress trained its MLAs for a week before this election, but the BJP’s one-day training had overshadowed their training. They failed and we passed, said Khattar.