Maha, Haryana results delayed over complaints
NEW DELHI: A mesh of allegations and counter charges of voting malpractices and bias stalled the counting for Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra and Haryana on Friday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress moving the Election Commission (EC) accusing each other of violating rules. Counting was yet to start till almost 1 am, when this newspaper went to print.
Rajya Sabha voting for six Upper House seats in Maharashtra and two in Haryana closed at 4pm but counting hadn’t begun till almost 1 am as EC officials deliberated on the complaints made by both sides. The results of five of the seats in Maharashtra and 1 in Haryana are clear (three for the MVA and two for the BJP in the former and one for the BJP in the latter)
In Mumbai and Chandigarh, anxious leaders from the BJP and Opposition camps were glued to television screens till late into the evening. Some stepped out for dinner around 11pm but were back in the hotels they had been sequestered in for the past week by midnight, said people with knowledge of developments.
In Haryana, the BJP was expected to win one seat with the fight for the second seat a cliffhanger between Congress’s Ajay Maken and Bjp-backed independent, media executive Kartikeya Sharma. The BJP’S allegations of voting malpractice in Haryana was rejected by the EC late in the evening, poll officials said on condition of anonymity.
In Maharashtra, the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena were expected to win one seat each. The BJP was expected to win two seats, with the fight for the sixth seat from the state going down to the wire between Sena’s Sanjay Pawar and BJP’S Dhananjay Mahadik.
In a petition to the poll watchdog, the BJP accused Haryana Congress’s legislators — BB Batra and Kiran Choudhry — of “compromising and vitiating the voting procedure” by “openly displaying their ballot papers” to people other than their own party election agent. The BJP filed a similar complaint against three MLAS in Maharashtra — Congress’s Yashomati Thakur, NCP’S Jitendra Ahwad and Sena’s Suhas Kande.
Voters are not allowed to display their ballot slips to people other than the party’s polling agents as per rules. In 2017, when a controversy erupted during the election for seats from Gujarat, the election commission had ruled that such violations would amount to the cancellation of ballots cast by the candidates at fault.
“The video cameras, though obliquely placed, may have captured the broad contours of the violation and objections were filed with the Returning Officer by the BJP election agent and other party agents. The RO, without even considering the facts presented or examining the conduct of election rules 1961 or consulting the ECI observers present on the spot, allowed the votes as legal,” the BJP said in its petition to the EC.
The party also cited Article 324 of the constitution of India read with section 66 of the Representation of Peoples Act 1951, rule 39AA of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 empowering the Election Commission of India to pass an order allowing the party’s request.
The Congress, however, filed a counter-complaint with the EC and accused the BJP of trying to tamper with the process of free and fair elections in Haryana. A delegation of Congress leaders comprising Pawan Kumar Bansal, Vivek Tankha and Ranjeet Ranjan met the poll body and handed over a memorandum on behalf of Maken.
In his letter to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, Maken termed the BJP’S allegations “unwarranted and illegal interference”.
Maken, a former union minister, alleged that the BJP has raised frivolous objections before the returning officer with the sole agenda to “defeat the process of free and fair elections”.
He added that the returning officer has already rejected the objections. “Fearing the loss of face in Rajya Sabha election results the BJP has resorted to cheap politics stalling counting of votes in Haryana. Please have a look at the Returning Officer’s decision rejecting the BJP’S objections. Is democracy still alive in India?” he asked in a tweet while sharing the remarks of the officer.
In Maharashtra, the counting was held up after BJP alleged Awhad, Thakur and Suhas Kande violated the model code for voting. “We have filed an appeal before the Election Commission of India, seeking that their votes be held invalid,” said a state BJP leader, requesting anonymity.
The BJP alleged Awhad and Thakur handed over their ballots to their party agents instead of only showing them the ballots, while Kande showed his ballot to two different agents.
The Congress rubbished the allegations and urged the EC to invalidate the votes of BJP MLA Sudhir Mungantiwar and independent MLA Ravi Rana in the Rajya Sabha election, alleging violation of rules.
State Congress president Nana Patole in a letter to the chief election commissioner claimed that Mungantiwar “vitiated the voting procedure” by showing his ballot paper to persons other than his own party’s election agents. Rana openly displayed the Hanuman Chalisa, a religious book, and sought to influence other voters, he alleged.