Rajya Sabha election: Congress worried about cross-voting in Haryana

Geetanjali Gayatri

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Chandigarh, June 9

With three candidates in the fray for two seats of the Rajya Sabha from Haryana, all eyes are on the MLAs who are keeping their cards close to their chest even as preparations were underway at the Haryana Vidhan Sabha.

Taking no chances after the “ink controversy” of 2016 where 12 invalid votes cast with a different ink “changed” the outcome of the election, the Haryana Vidhan Sabha will follow the directive of the Election Commission of India in letter and spirit on handling of the pen used by MLAs to cast the vote.

“Every MLA will be given a pen before he enters the polling booth. After casting his vote, he will return it to the staff on election duty. This directive of the ECI was always there. The ink controversy happened because the practice, however, was that the pen was tied there and all MLAs would cast their vote with it,” an official explained.

Also, in another departure from the previous elections, the authorised agents of the various parties will be seated 6 ft apart with a partition in between. Since agents of all parties would sit together in close proximity, there was always the scope of another party agent looking at the vote cast by an MLA while he showed it to his authorised agent, making it invalid.

The distance will ensure there is no way agents of other parties can get a sneak peek into the vote cast by a rival party MLA. Also, the entire election will be videographed.

While there is no contest for BJP’s candidate Krishan Lal Panwar and his election as RS MP is a foregone conclusion, the contest and its suspense revolves around the election for the second seat for which Congress candidate Ajay Maken and JJP-supported Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma are contenders. For them, two votes can make the difference between winning and losing.

While the Congress is worried about cross-voting and keeping its flock together, Sharma’s worry is cobbling up the numbers. While it is unclear which way Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi will vote given his mixed signals in the run-up to the poll, Independent MLA Balraj Kundu has said that he would only declare tomorrow whom he would support.

In a House of 90 members, the BJP needs 31 votes but has 40. The party has already supported Sharma, meaning that the second preference votes, nine in all, will be transferred to him. The Congress needs 30 and claims to have “at least 30”.

Sharma, if he wants to defeat the Congress, will need the magic figure of 30 but has 27 in his kitty so far. The JJP has 10 MLAs. There are seven Independent MLAs and two parties which have one MLA each.

All the parties will have their authorised agents to monitor the voting. There will be two polling agents, two counting agents and one election agent each.

Rajya Sabha election: Counting likely at 5 pm

Voting will take place between 9 am and 4 pm. After this, the Returning Officer will seek the permission of the ECI to start the counting of votes which is likely to begin at 5 pm.