Ajay Maken moves HC over Rajya Sabha election of Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 18

Weeks after the Rajya Sabha poll, Congress general secretary Ajay Maken today moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, challenging Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma’s victory. Maken was polled 29 votes, against 29.6 by BJP-JJP backed Sharma.

Maken alleged a wrongly marked vote of an MLA — who was not from the Congress, but voted for the Independent candidate — was not cancelled by the returning officer. He added the vote was ticked by Kiran Chaudhary only. “It was evident that when Chaudhary came out after casting the vote, she said it was ticked by her. We later saw the ballot number on which there was a tick and the chain of events. There was no doubt that Chaudhary had only ticked. It is a different matter that she may not have ticked deliberately. She has to tell whether she had deliberately ticked or was it by mistake”.

Maken added their authorised agent till the end kept telling that 30 “single preference” votes were polled in their favour. But “single preference” votes turned out to be 29. He said the vote cast in the Independent candidate’s favour should have been rejected as it was not marked in the column where the preference was supposed to be marked.

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