New Delhi: Cross-voting, rebellion and money power marred elections to the Rajya Sabha in seven states held on Saturday. While 30 of the 57 seats in the current round of biennial elections were decided without contest last week, of the 27 seats that were up for grabs, 11 went to the BJP, 6 to the Congress, 7 to the Samajwadi Party, 2 to the BSP and one to an Independent candidate.
While Union ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Birender Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman won comfortably, the victory of jurists Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha and media baron Subhash Chandra is significant. In UP, Mr Sibal, former Union minister and Congress heavyweight, managed to defeat BJP-backed Independent candidate Preeti Mahapatra, socialite and wife of a Mumbai-based businessman, without the anticipated support of BSP whose two candidates — Satish Chandra Mishra and Ashok Sidharth — won comfortably.
Cross-voting by JD(S) helps Congress reign in Karnataka
Cross-voting, rebellion and money power marred elections to the Rajya Sabha in seven states held on Saturday. In UP, all major political parties ensured victory for all their candidates despite cross-voting. The results showed that the BSP, which had backed Congress RS nominees in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, chose not to transfer its surplus votes to any other party candidate in UP.
Besides Mr Sibal, among the others who made it to the Rajya Sabha from the state are two recent returnees to the SP fold — Amar Singh and Beni Prasad Verma. If it was the Congress at the receiving end in Haryana, revolt-hit Janata Dal (Secular) suffered humiliation in Karnataka with eight of its MLAs cross-voting in favour of Congress.
Senior Congress leaders Oscar Fernandes and Jairam Ramesh were elected from Karnataka, and cross-voting by rebel JD(S) MLAs enabled it to gain a third seat. Former IPS officer K.C. Ramamurthy won the seat, defeating JD(S)-backed Independent candidate B.M. Farooq, a businessman.
Nirmala Seetharaman secured 46 votes in Karnataka, with the BJP making up the shortfall of one vote quite comfortably. The Congress high command was alarmed by the developments in Haryana where it failed to keep its flock together.
In Haryana, the party suffered through heavy cross-voting by its 14 MLAs which led to the defeat of the party-backed Independent candidate R.K. Anand who had been fielded by its arch-rival, the INLD.
