Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday congratulated Krishna Lal Panwar and Karthikeya Sharma, for their victory in the Rajya Sabha elections, terming it as  the victory of the people of the state.  "Both the MPs will go to the Rajya Sabha and raise the issues in the interests of Haryana," he said.

Khattar reached the Haryana Legislative Assembly at around 2 am and congratulated both the newly elected MPs and offered sweets to them.

Responding to a question, the Chief Minister said that the total number of MLAs in the Haryana Legislative Assembly is 90.  During the Rajya Sabha elections, one MLA did not cast his vote while the vote of a Congress MLA was cancelled.  With this, the total number of MLAs became  88. Whichever candidate gets one-third of the total number of votes in the Rajya Sabha, wins.

The candidate who will fall short of this winning figure will lose.  One-third of the 88 MLAs in the Haryana Legislative Assembly is 29.34.  By combining the first and second preferences, the numbers of both the candidates have this number, whereas  Congress candidate failed to score this number and was defeated.

The Chief Minister said that recounting was also done once during the election.

Responding to a question, Khattar said that MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi has cast an open vote. He heard his inner soul voice. He must have done this only after being impressed by the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, said Khattar.

Responding to another question, the Chief Minister said that he does not know how one vote of Congress was cancelled but BJP got all the votes.  The Congress had 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.

Earlier in the wee hours, BJP's Krishan Lal Panwar and Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma, backed by the saffron party and its ally JJP, won the two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana after the counting of votes which was delayed by hours over allegation of violation of rules. Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken did not get enough votes.

According to a senior Election Commission official, Panwar got 36 votes, while Sharma got 23 first preference votes and six transferred from the BJP, taking his tally to 29. Congress MLA and the party's authorised polling agent BB Batra said while the party's Kuldeep Bishnoi cross-voted, the vote of another party MLA was declared invalid. The counting of votes began past midnight Friday after the Election Commission gave the go-ahead. The counting was held up after the BJP and an Independent candidate backed by it had alleged violation of rules and demanded the votes of two Congress MLAs be declared invalid.

Panwar and Sharma had written to the EC, alleging Congress MLAs Kiran Choudhary and B B Batra showed their ballot papers to unauthorised persons after marking them and that the episodes were recorded by cameras.

KULDEEP BISHNOI EXPELLED FROM ALL PARTY POSITIONS IN CONGRESS

With Congress' Ajay Maken losing the Rajya Sabha election in Haryana due to cross-voting, the Congress cracked the whip and expelled its legislator Kuldeep Bishnoi from all party positions.  The Haryana Congress has alleged that Bishnoi, an MLA from the Adampur constituency in Hisar, did not vote for the party candidate and cross-voted in favour of Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma, who was supported by the ruling BJP-JJP combine.

The Congress had 31 MLA and needed as many votes to win the Rajya Sabha seat from Haryana, but one of its legislators cross-voted and another's vote was cancelled.  ''The Congress president has expelled Kuldeep Bishnoi from all his present party positions, including the post of special invitee of the Congress Working Committee, with immediate effect,'' a statement from AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said. Bishnoi had not attended any of the party meetings of its legislators and had said that he has voted as per his conscience.