Congress Nominees Will In All 5 Council Seats It Contested, BJP Sure Of 3 Cross Voting
The main opposition party Bharatiya Janata Party nominees won two seats it contested. The Janata Dal Secular (JDS) having an alliance with the BJP had contested a lone seat and lost.
BENGALURU: 5 nominees of the ruling Congress party were elected to Legislative Council for which the voting and counting of votes was held on Thursday and the success of Congress party’s the 5th nominee is attributed to cross voting by MLAs belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal Secular (JDS). The voting was done through a secret ballot held at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru city.
The main opposition party Bharatiya Janata Party nominees won two seats it contested. The Janata Dal Secular (JDS) having an alliance with the BJP had contested a lone seat and lost.
The election was held to fill-up vacant 7 MLCs seats. Voting to elect new members to Legislative Council was by MLAs. 222 MLAs voted in the Council election out of 224.
Congress MLA Vinay Kulkarni was disqualified after his conviction in a murder case and he represented Dharwad Assembly seat and Hiriyur MLA D. Sudhakar who served as Minister of Planning and Statistics passed away. One vote was declared invalid by Election officials.
In the Assembly Congress party has 135 MLAs and support of independent MLAs taking the figure to 138. The victory of 4 Congress nominees was assured going by the strength of the party in the Assembly and the victory of Vinay Karthik is reportedly attributed to cross voting but some MLAs belonging to BJP and JDS. After his victory, Vinay Karthik stated “I hoped to get 28 votes but my expectations exceeded to reach 32.”
Leader of Opposition in Assembly R. Ashok stated “We have information over 3 cross voting by our MLAs. In coming days, who cross voted will be known and the party will decide on action to be initiated against them.”
Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar stated he was unaware of who voted (opposition MLAs) for his party nominees since it was secret ballot voting. “I have not spoken to MLAs of opposition parties seeking votes. They might have voted for Congress nominees as per their conscience,” said the Chief Minister. Karnataka incharge of Congress party Randeep Singh Surjewala stated Congress nominees got 151 first preferential votes.
The Congress nominees who entered the Legislative Council were president of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee B.K. Hariprasad got 30 votes, Thippanna Kamaknoor got 30 votes, P.V. Mohan got 29 votes, B.S. Shivanna got 30 votes and Vinay Karthik got 32 votes. BJP’s R. Raghu got 29 votes and Lingaraj Patil got 27 votes and JDS nominee Govindaraju got 14 votes.
