Haryana RS polls: Congress accuses BJP of horse-trading, submits memo to Governor
Party questions role of IAS officer Pankaj Aggarwal, alleges partisan conduct and irregularities in counting process
The Congress Legislature Party, under Bhupinder Singh Hooda, on Thursday submitted a memorandum to Haryana Governor Prof Asim Ghosh, expressing serious concern and alleging that the Rajya Sabha election was perverted by flouting rules, abandoning ethical conduct, democratic values, and political morality by the ruling BJP.
The MLAs also alleged that the role of the Returning Officer, IAS officer Pankaj Aggarwal, was partisan, most unfair, and reprehensible.
Under normal circumstances, the victory of both candidates of the BJP and Congress was a foregone conclusion. However, despite lacking the requisite number of members to win the second seat, the BJP sprang a surprise by propping up its vice president Satish Nandal, proposed by seven BJP MLAs, as an Independent candidate.
“This unscrupulous act of the ruling party trampled the dignity of the August House of Haryana Legislative Assembly by transforming it into a political market. The ruling dispensation behaved as political predators and adopted all immoral means for the victory of its independent candidate,” the memorandum stated.
“They openly and unabashedly indulged in horse trading, faustian bargains, allurements, intimidations, institutional pressures, dishonest deals and misuse of government machinery. All this was a foulest broad-day light murder of democracy in the state with the whole country watching,” it added.
On the Returning Officer, the memorandum said: “More shameful and painful was the notorious shrewdness and arbitrariness in the conduct of the Returning Officer which supplemented the nefarious manipulations and machinations of the ruling party. The IAS officer Pankaj Aggarwal, behaved as an agent of the BJP/Independent Candidate in a manner in unbecoming of a Constitutional authority.”
“He deliberately and illegally rejected the Congress MLAs' votes, accepted and allowed the invalid votes in favour of BJP and the Independent candidates. He even attempted to tamper the counting process and procedure to influence the election outcome in favour of the Independent candidate,” it said.
The memorandum added: “He contemptuously ignored and rejected all valid objections/complaints made by the Congress polling agents. The Congress Party had even complained to the Election Commission of India about his misconduct.”
