The Congress suffered a major setback in the Rajya Sabha elections held in three States on Tuesday, with party legislators in Himachal Pradesh ensuring victory for BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan, leading to the embarrassing loss of senior Congress leader and two-time Upper House member Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
There was a tie with 34 votes each for Mahajan and Singhvi, but a lottery proved lucky for the BJP nominee. Other States, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, also reported large-scale decisive cross-voting in favour of the BJP in UP and in favour of Congress in Karnataka, which sent three Congress MPs and one BJP member to the council of states.
Polling was held for 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, four in Karnataka, and one seat in Himachal Pradesh. On February 20, 41 candidates, including BJP chief JP Nadda, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and Union mMinisters Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan, were elected unopposed to the Upper House.
The elections for one vacant seat from HP through a large number of cross-voting on Tuesday now indicate troubles ahead for the majority Congress Government in the State.
Large scale cross-voting in favour of BJP saw the saffron party winning eight seats in the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, while the Samajwadi Party (SP) could win only two seats.
For the BJP, the winners included Choudhary Tejveer Singh, Amarpal Maurya, Sangeeta Balwant, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Sadhna Singh, Nadeem Jain, RPN Singh and Sanjay Seth.
Jaya Bachchan and Ramji Lal Suman were winners from the SP. The third SP nominee Alok Ranjan lost the poll.
According to the numbers in the Assembly, seven candidates of the BJP and two from the SP were certain to win. The contest was mainly between BJP's eighth nominee Sanjay Seth and SP's third candidate Alok Ranjan.
As many as seven SP MLAs voted for the BJP candidates. The saffron party also received support from the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, RLD, the lone BSP MLA and one of the two Congress legislators.
Earlier, the SP chief whip in the Assembly Manoj Pandey resigned from his post and declared his support for the BJP. The other SP legislators, who voted for the BJP nominees, included Rakesh Pandey, Abhay Singh, Vinod Chaturvedi, Pooja Pal, Rakesh Pratap Singh and Ashutosh Maurya.
Those who made it to the Upper House from Karnataka are former Union Minister Ajay Maken, G C Chandrasekhar and Syed Naseer Hussain (all Congress) and Narayanasa K Bhandage (BJP).
The Congress took a dig at former Chief Minister and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy for fielding the fifth candidate D Kupendra Reddy. Karnataka has a Congress Government with a decisive mandate of 134 seats in the 224-member Assembly.
Five candidates were in the fray for the four seats in the elections, which were marred by cross-voting. The BJP suffered a setback when one of its MLAs — S T Somashekar — voted for Maken, the other — Shivaram Hebbar — abstained.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu before the poll alleged that five to six Congress MLAs were “kidnapped” and whisked away by the CRPF and the Haryana Police.
There is a buzz now after that if Congress nominee failed to make it to the Rajya Sabha, the BJP could move a no-trust motion against the Sukhu Government in the State Assembly.
In the 68-member State Assembly, the Congress has a clear majority with 40 MLAs and the support of three independent MLAs. The Opposition BJP has 25 MLAs.
The BJP had won 20 seats unopposed on February 20, followed by the Congress (6), Trinamool Congress (4), YSR Congress (3), RJD (2), BJD (2) and NCP, Shiv Sena, BRS and JD(U) one each.
From Rajasthan, Sonia Gandhi was elected unopposed so were BJP's Chunnilal Garasiya and Madan Rathore.
All the six candidates from Maharashtra — BJP's Chavan, who joined the party only last Tuesday after quitting the Congress, Medha Kulkarni and Ajit Gopchhade; Shiv Sena's Milind Deora, who also resigned from the Congress last month, Praful Patel (NCP) and Chandrakant Handore (Congress) were elected unopposed.
In Bihar, JD(U)'s Sanjay Kumar Jha, BJP's Dharmshila Gupta and Bhim Singh, Manoj Kumar Jha and Sanjay Yadav (both RJD) and Akhilesh Prasad Singh (Congress) were declared winners.
TMC's Sushmita Dev, Sagarika Ghose, Mamata Thakur and Md Nadimul Haque and Samik Bhattacharya (BJP) were declared winners from West Bengal.
Union Minister Murugan, Valmiki Dham Ashram head Umesh Nath Maharaj, Kisan Morcha's national vice president Banshilal Gurjar, and Madhya Pradesh BJP's women wing president Maya Naroliya bagged four seats for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh while Ashok Singh of the Congress also got elected unopposed.
The YSR Congress won all the three seats in Andhra Pradesh — G Babu Rao, YV Subba Reddy and M Raghunath Reddy while in neighbouring Telangana, the ruling Congress bagged two seats —Renuka Chowdhury and Anil Kumar Yadav — and BRS one seat — V Ravichandra.
BJP nominees in Uttarakhand (Mahendra Bhatt), Subhash Barala (Haryana), Devendra Pratap Singh (Chhattisgarh) were elected unopposed.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge slammed the BJP saying democracy would be “destroyed” if the Centre's ruling party continues to bring down elected Governments.
Kharge said they would challenge the election as both the candidates got 34 votes each and the decision was taken on the basis of a lottery.
“If the Government breaks an elected Government, what democracy is it. It has happened earlier in Karnataka, Manipur, Goa. When they do not get elected, they take measures, intimidate them and break the Government. Is this democracy?” Kharge stated.
