Despite winning all four Rajya Sabha seats, the ruling BJP was still left red-faced because of cross voting. It is suspected that two legislators, including one from the BJP and one independent, voted for Independent Kamal Morarka while one vote of Zamindara party MLA Sona Devi was rejected.
The BJP had fielded Union minister Venkaiah Naidu, party’s national vice-president Om Prakash Mathur, former RBI official and vice-president of Ambedkar Peeth Ramkumar Verma and member of erstwhile Dungarpur royal family Harsh Vardhan Singh.
There were interesting twists and turns throughout the day. In the morning, a senior BJP leader Yogendra Singh Tanwar deliberately resigned from the party and joined Zamindara Party to become polling agent of the latter in order to ensure that two of its MLAs actually voting for the BJP candidates.
Just how worried the party leadership was can be understand from the fact that all 166 MLAs were herded into a hotel at the outskirts of Jaipur for three days.
Mock voting drills were organised in which the chief minister herself sat as polling agent. Besides, MLAs were not allowed to use mobile phones and jammers were installed at the hotel.
On polling day today, four senior ministers were assigned a group of 40 odd MLAs each to bring them to the assembly and stay with them till their votes were casted. The
Yet, there were another twist taking the BJP by surprise. Sona Devi one of the Zamindara party MLAs reportedly chose to exercise NOTA option although it was said that her vote was rejected. This one vote deficit for the BJP was made up by independent Anju Dhanka who was one of the proposers of Kamal Morarka but switched allegiance at the last moment alleging that he did not speak to her.
Still, BJP got two votes less than what was expected. Parliamentary affairs minister Rajendra Singh Rathore said that the party would investigate as to who are two MLAs who didn’t vote for the party candidates. Unconfirmed reports suggested that one BJP MLA changed his first priority whereas one independent who was with the BJP from the beginning ditched at the last moment.
Although, Venkaiah Naidu along with fellow minister and in charge of Rajya Sabha elections in Rajasthan Piyush Goyal praised chief minister Vasundhara Raje for her election management but the cross voting must be pinching her.
