The outcome for two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana turned into a cliff hanger in the early hours of Tuesday with the Congress, despite having the numbers on paper, barely managing to win the second seat by just one vote.
The poll results were declared at 1.07 am on Tuesday, more than nine hours after polling ended at 4pm on Monday. Bharatiya Janata Party member Sanjay Bhatia comfortably won one of the two seats. But for the second seat, Congress candidate Karamvir Singh Boudh beat BJP-backed independent Satish Nandal by just one vote.
The ruling BJP has 48 legislators in the 90-member assembly and the opposition Congress has 37. The Indian National Lok Dal, which has two lawmakers, abstained from voting.
Five votes – four from the Congress and one from the BJP – were declared invalid. To win a seat, the number of first-preference votes required became 28.
Returning officer Pankaj Agrawal said Bhatia got 39 first preference votes, Boudh 28 and Nandal 16.
Among these 16 were three independents who voted for Nandal and five Congress lawmakers, said Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Had one more lawmaker of the Congress cross voted in favour of Nandal, it would have been curtains for Boudh, whose tally would have fallen below the threshold to 27, and Nandal’s would have risen to 28 (17 first preference votes + 11 surplus votes of Bhatia).
Voting for the Rajya Sabha is done through open ballot and lawmakers are required to show their marked ballot paper to party’s authorised agents. Leaders said among the five, two were Meo-Muslim legislators, one Sikh legislator and two women legislators from northern Haryana.
Hooda though refused to divulge the names of the five party MLAs who cross-voted, former education minister and party MLA from Jhajjar, Geeta Bhukkal indicated that Congress MLAs who allegedly indulged in cross voting and whose names are doing the rounds are Mohammad Illyas (Punhana in Mewat), Mohammad Israil (Hathin), Jarnail Singh (Ratia) and two women MLAs – Renu Bala ( Sadhuara) and Shalley Chaudhary (Naraingarh). Illyas and Israil are Meo Muslims, Jarnail Singh, a Sikh and Renu Bala were elected from constituencies reserved for scheduled castes.
He said that BJP’s intent was to engineer an upset by fielding state vice-president Nandal as an independent. “However, it was foiled by the Congress MLAs,” said a beaming Hooda.
Show-cause notices to 5 Congress MLAs
Haryana Congress president Rao Narender Singh on Tuesday said at Narnaul that show cause notices have been issued to five Congress MLAs who cross voted and the party high command will soon take a final call on their expulsion. On four Congress MLAs votes found invalid, the state Congress chief accused the returning officer of cancelling four Congress votes to steal the mandate at the behest of ruling BJP.
Chief minister Nayab Saini early Tuesday morning told reporters that Congress did not trust its MLAs and this is why they kept them detained in a herd.
“Five of the Congress MLAs cross voted and four were declared invalid. That’s 25% of the Congress strength in the House. The BJP backed Independent lost by just one vote,’’ Saini said.
The cliffhanger was a throwback to June 2022 when Congress’s Ajay Maken lost the Rajya Sabha polls to the BJP-backed independent Kartikeya Sharma by a razor thin margin in results that were announced after midnight.
On Monday, the counting began only at 10.30pm as both the BJP and Congress submitted complaints to the Election Commission, stating that the secrecy of the ballot had been violated.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to EC, alleging that there was a clear attempt to interfere with the integrity of the Rajya Sabha election. The BJP, on its part, complained to the poll authority, pertaining to “violation of vote secrecy” of two Congress MLAs, Paramvir Singh and Bharat Singh Beniwal.
