Rajya Sabha polls: BJP's Krishan Lal Panwar, Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma elected from Haryana; Cong's Ajay Makan loses

Geetanjali Gayatri & Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Chandigarh, June 10

Delivering a blow to the Congress, the BJP and an Independent candidate backed by it won the two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana, the results for which were declared around 2.30 a.m on Saturday after high drama that put the counting on hold for almost eight hours.

BJP candidate Krishan Lal Panwar and JJP-backed BJP-supported Independent candidate, Kartikeya Shama respectively were declared elected  in an election which saw a photo-finish.

While the value of votes polled by BJP was 3600 and Panwar won one seat, Sharma won the second seat with 2960 vote value. The Congress value of votes was pegged at 2900.  One Congress vote was declared invalid while Congress MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi had cross-voted for Sharma.

Congress Chief Whip, BB Batra, said that one Congress vote had a tick in place of ‘I’, making it invalid.

High drama was witnessed as polling began for two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana in the morning though counting began only past midnight, 7.5 hours after the scheduled time.

Counting began after the ruling BJP-JJP’s petition to the Election Commission of India seeking cancellation of two Congress votes was rejected. 

The CEO, Haryana, Anurag Aggarwal, said that the ECI had conveyed to them to “count all the votes”. It meant that the ECI rejected the petitions of the JJP, BJP and the Independent candidate.

In the 90-member Haryana Vidhan Sabha, 89 MLAs had cast their vote.

With three candidates in the fray, tension was palpable in the high-stakes election as soon as the first vote was cast. While the BJP’s authorised agent and Haryana Education minister, Kanwar Pal Gujjar, cast the first vote, objections started to come in from BJP and JJP MLAs as soon as the first Congress vote was cast by BB Batra. 

Sources said the BJP and JJP raised the issue that Batra had spoken to his party’s authorised agent Vivek Bansal. The coalition leaders claimed this was not allowed while also alleging that Batra’s vote was “exposed” and seen by other parties’ agents and should be declared invalid.

The Returning Officer, RK Nandal, on Sharma’s demand, checked the video recording and dismissed the allegations. He also rejected Sharma’s written claim and allowed Batra to cast his vote. 

A similar hue and cry was raised later in the day by the JJP agent when Congress MLA Kiran Choudhry showed her vote to party agent Bansal. However, this claim, too, was rejected after the videography was checked. Congress MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi was among the first MLAs to arrive and cast his vote in keeping with the “voice of his conscience”. Sources said that Bansal raised the issue of Bishnoi not voting for the party candidate. 

The BJP and JJP MLAs, accompanied by Independent MLAs (minus Balraj Kundu) arrived in two buses while the Congress MLAs arrived together in a separate bus to cast their vote.  It is learnt that Independent MLAs cast their vote in favour of the BJP candidate.

Independent MLA Balraj Kundu, who had campaigned against the BJP over the farm laws, did not cast his vote though he came to the polling venue. “How can I vote for the BJP? I also cannot vote for the Congress candidate who is an outsider,” he said. It is learnt that Health Minister Anil Vij and state BJP chief OP Dhankar tried to convince him to vote in favour of Sharma but to no avail. 

Sources said the JJP’s authorised agent and party secretary general Digvijay Singh Chautala ran into arguments with rival party leaders on numerous occasions and his aggressive posturing created unnecessary tension.

Choudhry, too, raised her voice and asked Chautala to remain confined to his cubicle instead of constantly trying to peep out to see votes of the Congress, the sources added.

During the course of the polling, Nandal objected to the way Chautala sat and asked him to push back his chair into his cubicle rather than hang out to see votes of the Congress MLAs. Chautala, too, “shouted” back, saying that the RO could not dictate the way he sat. 

In the 90-member Vidhan Sabha, the quota of votes needed is calculated on the basis of total valid votes polled. In case of this Rajya Sabha election, this number was 88 since one MLA had abstained from voting and one vote was declared invalid. 

So, instead of the 31 votes required for the first candidate, BJP’s Krishan Lal Panwar, this number came down to 29.34. 

While Panwar polled 31 votes, Congress’ Ajay Makan got 29 and Independent candidate Kartikey Sharma got 28 votes 

After Panwar’s requirement was deducted from the 31 votes he polled, the remaining 1.66 (31.00-29.34) votes got transferred to Kartikey as second preference votes. So, he won with 29.66 votes. Ajay Makan remained at 29