Congress MLAs from Haryana at a resort in Raipur. file photo
Chandigarh, June 9
Taking no chances of getting poached, Congress MLAs have decided to reach Chandigarh only on polling day. They left Raipur and reached Delhi tonight.
They will reach Chandigarh on the morning of June 10 to cast their votes in the Rajya Sabha poll.
“Before going to Haryana Vidhan Sabha, the MLAs will meet former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda at his residence for breakfast,” said a senior party MLA.
“I am sure of victory. All the Congress MLAs will vote for the party candidate. There shouldn’t be any doubt,” said Hooda.
At Delhi, the MLAs are going to stay in a hotel together. Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda, state in-charge Vivek Bansal, state president Udai Bhan and party’s Rajya Sabha candidate Ajay Maken are also travelling along with the MLAs.
The Congress strategy for the Rajya Sabha poll has been to keep its flock together at a resort and try to get support from Independent MLA Balraj Kundu and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) MLA Abhay Singh Chautala in case of defection.
A candidate needs a quota of 31 first-preference votes to get through and the party has as many MLAs. Adampur MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi is upset over not being made the state president but the party is sure that the rest of the 30 MLAs are going to vote for the party candidate.
At Mayfair resort, the Congress was able to keep 28 MLAs. The remaining three included Bishnoi, Kiran Choudhry, and former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
The main challenge to Maken is from Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma, who is backed by the BJP, JJP and Independent MLAs. He is relying on defection from the Congress to clinch the required quota.
Meanwhile, the Congress has appointed the party’s chief whip BB Batra as the election agent.
State in-charge Vivek Bansal and Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Shukla will be the authorised agents. All the Congress MLAs have to mandatorily show their ballot papers to them. Otherwise, their votes will not be counted.
The polling agents will be Deputy Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Aftab Ahmed and former MLA Ashok Arora.
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