Kamal Ghorui
Rajya Sabha elections Monday accentuated the opposition’s inability to hold its ranks, with absentee legislators costing the Grand Alliance a seat in Bihar, cross-voting delivering a bonus seat to BJP in Odisha and a dispute over ballot secrecy leaving the poll outcome in Haryana hanging. In Bihar, Mahagathbandhan’s lone candidate, RJD’s Amarendra Dhari Singh, lost after four opposition legislators — three from Congress and one from RJD — stayed away from the election. Had they voted, Singh would have secured 41 votes against the required threshold of 40, instead of the 37 he polled. Bihar last saw an RS vote in 2014, when JD(U) candidates Pavan Varma and Gulam Rasool Balyawi overcame crossvoting by party MLAs to defeat BJP-backed independents.
Nitish, Nitin win Rajya Sabha seats as NDA sweeps BiharIn Bihar, all five NDA candidates — outgoing CM Nitish Kumar, new BJP president Nitin Nabin, Union minister Ram Nath Thakur, Rashtriya Lok Morcha president Upendra Kushwaha and state BJP general secretary Shivesh Kumar — won the biennial elections to fill five Rajya Sabha berths that will be vacated on April 9. All 202 NDA MLAs voted, and no cross-voting was reported. Among the NDA candidates, Nitish and Nitin each polled 44 votes while Ram Nath and Upendra received 42 each. Shivesh had 30 first-preference votes, crossing the threshold on second-preference counting. In Odisha, 11 instances of cross-voting — eight by BJD members and three by Congress — handed BJP-backed Independent Dilip Ray the fourth Rajya Sabha seat, defeating BJD and Congress’s joint candidate Datteswar Hota. BJP nominees Manmohan Samal and Sujeet Kumar won comfortably, as did BJD’s Santrupt Misra. BJD, with 50 MLAs — including two suspended members — had the required strength in the assembly to win one seat on its own and had tied up with Congress’s 14 to secure a second. Cross-voting upended that arithmetic. BJD president and former CM Naveen Patnaik accused BJP of horse-trading, saying most non-BJP MLAs who backed the governing party had “criminal backgrounds”. CM Mohan Charan Majhi termed the remarks “immature” and said Patnaik had “insulted not just the MLAs by calling them criminals, but also the voters who elected them”. Odisha PCC president Bhakta Charan Das described the defection of three Congress MLAs — Sofia Firdous, Ramesh Jena and Dasarathi Gamango — as “unexpected”. He said the matter had been referred to the party high command. For Ray, the script was a familiar one. The former Union minister won a Rajya Sabha seat in 2002 under near-identical circumstances. On that occasion, he was contesting as an Independent after being expelled from BJD and was carried through by large-scale cross-voting. Haryana’s two-seat contest remained unresolved Monday night after both BJP and Congress lodged complaints with the Election Commission. Of 90 MLAs in the House, 88 voted. Both Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) legislators abstained, with Abhay Chautala citing a lack of confidence in either party. Each seat requires 31 votes to win. The three candidates are BJP’s Sanjay Bhatia, Congress nominee Karamvir Singh Boudh and BJPbacked Independent Satish Nandal. BJP has 48 seats in the assembly and Congress 37. The three legislators are Independents. BJP minister Krishan Kumar Bedi filed two objections, alleging that two Congress legislators failed to fold their ballots correctly, compromising vote secrecy. Till close to midnight, the presiding officer was awaiting chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s ruling on the dispute
