Rajya Sabha elections: Congress wins two seats, BJP wins one in Rajasthan

Yash Goyal
Jaipur, June 19

The Congress won two of Rajasthan’s Rajya Sabha seats on Friday and the Bhataritya Janata Party won one in biennial election held on Friday.

“Congress candidates KC Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi, and BJP’s Rajendra Gehlot were elected to Rajya Sabha, “the Returning Officer and Assembly Secretary PK Mathur said announced after the votes were counted.

Former Rajya Sabha member Onkar Singh Lakhawat lost the election. Two of Rajasthan’s 200 assembly members didn’t turn up for the elections.

One was Congress Minister Bhanwar Lal Meghwal—who has been recuperating at a hospital in Gurugram for over a month—and the second and CPI-M’s MLA Girdhari Mahriya.

Meanwhile, Congress MLA Wajib Ali, who only recently returned from Australia, stunned the gathering as he turned up to vote wearing a PPE kit.

Ali’s appearance in the House later led to BJP approaching police accusing the MLA of flouting quarantine rules. 

The election was prompted by seats being vacated by three of BJP’s sitting Members of Parliament in Rajya Sabha—Narayan Lal Panchariya, Ram Narain Dudi, and Vijay Goel—after their terms ended  on April 9, 2020.

The elections were initially scheduled for March 26, but were postponed because on the nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of coronavirus.

The state’s Congress party’s alliance enjoys a full two-third majority in the house of 200 MLAs—besides 107 of its won MLAs, it has support from 12 Independents who joined the party, and BTP and CPI-M, who have two MLAs each.

Opposition BJP has 72 MLAs on its own in the house, and also has the support of the three MLAs of RLTP, an NDA alliance partner.