RS polls: Digvijaya Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia sail through; YSRC’S clean sweep in Andhra
NEW DELHI: Voting for 19 Rajya Sabha seats spread across eight states held on Friday amid all precautionary measures in view of the COVID-19 pandemic which led to two legislators in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan who were in quarantine turning up in PPE gear.
The ruling YSR Congress bagged all the four Rajya Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh and seasoned campaigners like Digvijaya Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Shibu Soren had an easy sailing as the results of the polls to the upper house were on expected lines.
In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won two seats and the Congress bagged one seat while in Rajasthan, it was the other way around with the Congress emerging victorious in two. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha
(JMM) won one seat in Jharkhand so did the BJP while the candidates of the ruling alliances won in Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
Social distancing was followed and entry of the legislators were allowed after thermal screening and wearing of masks. As a precautionary measure, the election commission gave individual pen to the legislators for marking their votes. In Manipur, BJP candidate and the state’s titular king L Sanajaoba defeated veteran T Mangi Babu of the Congress in some high-voltage drama.
Sanajaoba received 28 votes compared to Babu’s 24, officials said.
In Gujarat, the BJP bagged three seats, and Congress one. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Narhari Amin, Ajay Bhardwaj, Ramilaben Bara and Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil have been elected as
Rajya Sabha members from Gujarat. Earlier, counting of votes for four seats in Gujarat was delayed as the Congress demanded that the Election Commission invalidate two BJP votes on different grounds.
The ruling Congress in Rajasthan won two out of the three seats which went to polls. While K C Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi were declared elected, BJP’S Rajendra Gehlot won comfortably while its second candidate Onkar Singh Lakhawat was defeated.
The BJP raised objection on the vote cast by Congress MLA Wajib Ali, who recently returned from Australia, saying he has violated quarantine norms. However, he said he has already been tested negative for COVID-19 and cast his vote after wearing a PPE gear.
Veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and BJP candidates Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sumer Singh Solanki won from Madhya Pradesh. The Congress's other candidate, Dalit leader Phool Singh Barriya, lost the election.
A Congress MLA who has contracted coronavirus arrived in an ambulance, wearing Personal Protection Equipment gear. He was the last one to vote. JMM supremo Shibu Soren and BJP state unit president Deepak Prakash won the two seats in Jharkhand. In Andhra Pradesh, Deputy Chief Minister Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose, minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, industrialist Parimal Nathwani and realtor Ayodhya Rami Reddy of the YSRC were elected with 38 votes each.
The ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance candidate Wanwei Roy Kharlukhi Friday won the lone seat in Meghalaya defeating Congress candidate Kennedy Cornelius Khyriem by a margin of 20 votes.