Rajya Sabha elections: Congress wins 3 seats in Rajasthan, BJP 1; saffron party-backed Subhash Chandra loses
Vibha Sharma
New Delhi/Mumbai/Chandigarh, June 10
In a setback to opposition BJP in Rajasthan and one-up for Congress’ Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, BJP-backed independent candidate, media baron Subash Chandra, failed to gather the required votes to make it to the Rajya Sabha from the state.
Congress, meanwhile, won three of the four seats with candidates Randeep Surjewala getting 43 votes, Mukul Wasnik 42 votes and Pramod Tiwari 41 votes in the fiercely-fought contest.
BJP’s Ghanshyam Tiwari, the fourth candidate to sail through from Rajasthan, got 43 votes.
Amid reports of cross-voting by BJP MLA “belonging to former CM Vasundhara Raje’s camp”—Shobharani Kushwah— Chandra got 30 votes. Kushwah is believed to have voted for Congress’ Pramod Tiwari.
Chandra, who earlier claimed to have breached Congress MLAs, got the support of three MLAs of Hanuman Beniwal’s party— RLP.
Though BJP’s total increased to 74 votes, it also lost a couple.
Congress has 108 MLAs and BJP 71 MLAs in the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly.
While BJP had 30 surplus votes for the second seat and needed another 11 for Chandra to make it through, Congress, in order to win a third seat, required 15 more votes.
Congress candidates also got the support of 13 Independents, one RLD, two CPM and two BTP MLAs.
BJP suspends Rajasthan MLA Shobharani Kushwah for cross-voting
Meanwhile, the BJP on Friday suspended its Rajasthan MLA Shobharani Kushwah for cross-voting in favour of Congress candidate Pramod Tiwari in the Rajya Sabha elections.
Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria issued an order stating Kushwah voted for Tiwari despite a whip and that she was being suspended from the BJP’s primary membership.
In the letter, Kataria also asked the MLA to clarify why she voted against the whip.
BJP state president Satish Poonia said the party high command has been informed about the matter.
The Congress fielded three candidates for the four Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan, while the BJP fielded one, besides supporting an independent candidate.
In Karnataka, ruling BJP bags 3 seats, Congress 1
In Karnataka, the ruling BJP, which had fielded a third candidate Lehar Singh Siroya along with Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and actor Jaggesh, won three seats. While Congress’s Jairam Ramesh bagged the fourth seat, the HD Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (S) scored zero in the RS polls.
BJP General Secretary CT Ravi said Sitharaman and Ramesh polled 46 votes, Jaggesh 44 votes and Siroya 33. “We were winning two seats in Karnataka easily, we got one more as a bonus,” Ravi said.
“There are people in other parties who like the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and have faith in him. They have helped us. I would like to thank them too,” he said.
The BJP had fielded three candidates, the Congress two and the JD(S) one
JD(S) Srinivas Gowda reportedly voted for the Congress, while another MLA, HD Ravanna, is believed to have shown his ballot paper to state Congress chief DK Shivakumar.
Saying that two of his 32 MLAs did not vote for the party, HD Kumaraswamy blamed it on “low-level politics”. Former CM Siddaramaiah had also written an open letter to JD(S) MLAs, asking them to cast their “conscience vote” in favour of party candidate Mansoor Ali Khan.
Counting begins in Maharashtra
The counting of votes for the Rajya Sabha elections was delayed on Friday in Maharashtra over alleged violation of rules, officials said. However, after several hours of drama counting began. The poll panel directed the returning officer to reject the vote cast by Shiv Sena legislator Suhas Kande
— with PTI inputs
