Ink controversy: Haryana Congress worried about 2016 repeat

Chandigarh, June 3

The spectre of the “ink controversy” that rocked the 2016 Rajya Sabha election in Haryana and altered the result in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is keeping the Congress on its toes despite the party having the numbers to win the seat.

In a similar situation this election and worried about a repeat of 2016 when a changed sketch pen and a different ink altered the outcome of an otherwise “comfortable” election, the state Congress leadership and its candidate, Ajay Maken, have “shifted” party MLAs to Raipur to keep at bay any attempt at horse-trading.

Though the Congress has 31 MLAs against 30 votes it needs to win, the leadership is not able to put the state’s history of the “ink controversy” behind it when it was left defending “invalid” votes of its MLAs.

In 2016, for the two RS seats, there were three candidates. The INLD and Congress supported Independent candidate, RK Anand, who, seemingly, had the numbers on his side lost to BJP-backed Independent candidate and media baron Subhash Chandra. The BJP had fielded Birender Singh in that election. He had won comfortably.

During counting, 14 votes by Congress MLAs were found “invalid” or rejected on technical grounds. While 12 were rejected for the use of a different ink, blue instead of purple, to mark the preference of candidates, one was rejected because it was blank, while one more vote was cancelled after it was shown to another member.

Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had, back then, blamed the BJP for the “conspiracy”, while the then Leader of Opposition Abhay Chautala had blamed the party’s legislator for replacing the original pen.

It was alleged that the 13 “invalid” votes were polled after a BJP MLA cast his vote at serial number 93 and before an Independent MLA and Subhash Chandra’s counting agent cast his vote at serial number 107.

He alleged that the BJP legislator had replaced the original purple sketch pen with a blue sketch pen which was removed by Independent MLA when he went to cast his vote after the Congressmen had cast their votes.

It was alleged that the three MLAs who voted after the agent MLA had voted, were valid. However, the BJP MLA and the Independent MLA had dismissed the allegations, adding that they had not carried any pens and mobiles into the polling area. Nothing came out of the controversy.

Not taking any chances

Though the Congress has 31 MLAs against 30 votes it needs to win, the leadership is not able to put the state’s history of the ‘ink controversy’ behind it when it was left defending ‘invalid’ votes of its MLAs.