CHINA WILL ‘NOT HESITATE TO START WAR’ OVER TAIWAN: BEIJING TO WASHINGTON
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot who took it upon himself to ensure a victory for the party.
In Karnataka, the BJP won three seats and the Congress one as the Janata Dal (Secular) drew a blank amid allegations of cross-voting against the party’s lawmakers. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Kannada actor Jaggesh and member of legislative council Lahar Singh Siroya – all from the BJP – were declared winners. Former Union minister Jairam Ramesh won from the Congress.
“Heartiest congratulations to finance minister @nsitharaman, @Jaggesh2 & @ Lehar Singh for being elected as Rajya Sabha members from Karnataka,” tweeted Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai.
But the counting for two other states – Maharashtra and Haryana, accounting for eight Rajya Sabha seats – couldn’t start at the time of going to print as the BJP and Congress repeatedly petitioned the Election Commission with demands to invalidate the votes of certain members.
Results for these two states – which witnessed pitched battles between the Congress’s Ajay Maken and Bjp-backed media executive Kartikeya Sharma in Haryana, and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Pawar and BJP’S Dhananjay Mahadik in Maharashtra – were expected in the early hours of the morning, bringing back memories of Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s narrow Rajya Sabha victory in 2017 that was declared after 1am.
All eyes were on Haryana, where the BJP was expected to win one seat and the Congress’s Maken and Bjp-backed independent Sharma, battled it out for the second seat. In Maharashtra, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was expected to bag three seats, the BJP two, with the contest for the final seat going down to the wire between Sena’s Pawar and BJP’S Mahadik.
Shortly after voting closed, the BJP and the Opposition rushed to the EC over allegations and counter-allegations of invalid votes and even charges of bias against a returning officer.
In this round of biennial elections to the Upper House, 57 seats were on offer. Of this, 41 were declared uncontested last week and 16 went to the polls on Friday. The results of eight seats were declared by the EC and eight were pending. Of the eight, the results of six are clear, three for the BJP, and three for its rivals.
The BJP got 18 of the 49 seats (31 of 52 if the six other results are factored in) and the Congress bagged eight (nine). Aam Aadmi Party got two from Punjab, YSR Congress Party won four from Andhra Pradesh, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won three from Tamil Nadu and Biju Janata Dal three from Odisha. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi won two from Telangana, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won two from Tamil Nadu and Rashtriya Janata Dal won two from Bihar.
The Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Janata Dal (United) won one seat each, and Kapil Sibal – who was backed by the SP – was the only independent candidate to win in this round.
The biennial Rajya Sabha elections, where nominees win based on the relative strengths of their parties in state assemblies, are important for the upcoming presidential elections and also to understand how powerful a particular party is in a state. The stakes were especially high for the Opposition parties as the BJP was aggressively bidding to take seats that the Congress and its allies expected to win on the basis of their legislative strength. For the BJP, it presented an opportunity to inch closer to a majority in the Rajya Sabha, which acts as a crucial check on its legislative agenda.
The BJP alleged that in Maharashtra, Congress lawmakers Yashomati Thakur, NCP’S Jitendra Awhad and Sena’s Suhas Kande “compromised and vitiated the voting process” by openly displaying ballot papers to people other than their own party’s election agent. In a separate petition, it complained that in Haryana, Congress legislators Kiran Choudhary and BB Batra displayed their ballot papers to people other than the party’s polling agent.
The Congress alleged that the BJP was trying to tamper with the process of free and fair elections in Haryana. In Maharashtra, the Congress urged the EC to invalidate the votes of BJP MLA Sudhir Mungantiwar and independent MLA Ravi Rana, alleging violation of rules.
At the time of going to print, meetings were still on at the EC over objections filed by political parties in Haryana and Maharashtra.
BEIJING: Beijing will “not hesitate to start a war” if Taiwan declares independence, China’s defence minister warned his US counterpart on Friday at their first face-to-face meeting.
Chinese defence minister Wei Fenghe and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin met for about an hour on the sidelines of the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore, a major three-day defence forum, which was inaugurated on Friday.
The in-person meeting was under sharp focus because the two ministers had only spoken once on the phone in late April.
During Friday’s talks, Wei told Austin that “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan” and that the one-china principle is the political foundation of Sino-us relations. It is impossible to “use Taiwan to control China,” he said.
The Chinese minister strongly criticised the US for its latest sale of arms to Taiwan, saying it seriously undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests.
“China firmly opposes and strongly condemns it,” Wei said, according to Senior Colonel Wu Qian, a spokesperson of China’s ministry of national defence.
Wei warned Austin that “if anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost”, defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian quoted the minister as saying during the meeting.
RAJYA SABHA
IN THIS ROUND OF BIENNIAL ELECTIONS TO THE UPPER HOUSE, 57 SEATS WERE UP FOR GRABS
READ THE FULL STORY: The talks come amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing