In Rajya Sabha, BJP closes in on Congress

Cross-voting, rebellion and money power marred elections to the Rajya Sabha in seven states held on Saturday. While 30 of the 57 seats in the current round of biennial elections were decided without contest last week, of the 27 seats that were up for grabs, 11 went to BJP, 6 to Congress, 7 to Samajwadi Party, 2 to BSP and one to an Independent candidate. After the results, the BJP has increased its tally in the Rajya Sabha, but the Congress remains the single-largest party.

While Union ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Birender Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman won comfortably, the victory of jurists Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha and media baron Subhash Chandra is significant.

In Uttar Pradesh, Mr Sibal, former Union minister, managed to defeat BJP-backed Independent candidate Preeti Mahapatra, wife of a Mumbai-based businessman, without the anticipated support of BSP whose two candidates won comfortably.

In UP, all major political parties ensured victory for all their candidates despite cross-voting. The results showed that the BSP, which had backed Congress RS nominees in Rajasthan and MP, chose not to transfer its surplus votes to any other party candidate in UP.

Besides Mr Sibal, among the others who made it to the Rajya Sabha from the state are two recent returnees to the SP fold — Amar Singh and Beni Prasad Verma.

In Rajasthan, the BJP’s M. Venkaiah Naidu, O.P. Mathur, Harsh Vardhan of the erstwhile Dungarpur royal family, and Ramkumar Verma, a retired RBI official, won the four seats in the state. Congress-backed Independent Kamal Morarka was defeated.

If it was the Congress at the receiving end in Haryana, revolt-hit Janata Dal (Secular) suffered humiliation in Karnataka with eight of its MLAs cross-voting in favour of Congress.

Senior Congress leaders Oscar Fernandes and Jairam Ramesh were elected from Karnataka, and cross-voting by rebel JD(S) MLAs enabled it to gain a third seat. Former IPS officer K.C. Ramamurthy won the seat, defeating JD(S)-backed Independent candidate B.M. Farooq, a businessman.

Nirmala Seetharaman secured 46 votes in Karnataka, with the BJP making up the shortfall of one vote quite comfortably.

The Congress high command, shaken after Ajit Jogi’s rebellion, was alarmed by the developments in Haryana where it failed to keep its flock together.

In Haryana, the party suffered through heavy cross-voting by its 14 MLAs which led to the defeat of the party-backed Independent candidate R.K. Anand who had been fielded by its arch-rival, the INLD. Media baron Subhash Chandra defeated Mr Anand, a senior lawyer and a former MP, after 14 votes of Congress were rejected. Even before the election, there was speculation that the overwhelming majority of the 17 Congress MLAs, owing allegiance to former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, would not toe the party line on supporting Mr Anand.

In Jharkhand, too, the Congress failed to secure victory for JMM candidate Basant Soren, son of party supremo Shibu Soren, backed by it in the state where ruling BJP nominee Mahesh Poddar won by a whisker after an arrested JMM MLA and a Congress MLA facing arrest could not vote.

In Madhya Pradesh, the results were on expected lines as the BJP and Congress candidates were elected but a BJP-backed Independent candidate got defeated.

In Uttarakhand, Congress’ Pradeep Tamta defeated Independent candidate Anil Goel to win the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the state and become the first dalit from the hill state to enter the Upper House of Parliament.