Rajya Sabha elections: BJP wins 10 — 2 due to cross-voting; crisis in Himachal
The elections to all the 56 Rajya Sabha seats that fall vacant in April have been completed.
The elections for 15 seats were held on Tuesday, in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. Earlier, 41 MPs were elected unopposed in various legislatures.
Of the 56, BJP has won 30—20 unopposed and 10 in the elections. This would take the party’s tally in Rajya Sabha to 97 and that of BJP-led NDA to 117—just four short of the majority mark of 121 in the 240-member House.
BJP remains the single largest party in the Rajya Sabha with 97 members (including five nominated MPs who joined the party), followed by Congress with 29 members.
The elections, however, were rocked by cross-voting by MLAs.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP registered a stunning win, winning eight of the 10 seats amid cross-voting by at least seven SP MLAs and the lone BSP MLA in its favour. The cross-voting ensured the defeat of SP’s Alok Ranjan.
This was not the only embarrassment for SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. The party whip resigned just before the voting and even as the voting was on, he and four others met Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in he assembly secretariat.
In Karnataka, Congress won three of the four, with the BJP bagging the fourth. Cross-voting too place by one BJP MLA in favour of the Congress and another BJP MLA did not vote, both defying the party whip.
Most of the drama, however, was reserved for Himachal Pradesh. Cross-voting by nine MLAs ensured that, despite possessing a huge majority in the Assembly, the Congress’s candidate, the veteran parliamentarian Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost out. It was doubly unfortunate as the cross-voting resulted in a tie and then Singhvi lost in a lottery.
The rule for the lottery, set by the Election Commission, is also strange, by some accounts. The name drawn from the box, instead of winning, as is usual, would end up losing. “It is written in the stars and written by God,” Singhvi told the media later.
He also said that the nine MLAs who voted against him were with him and other party leaders even on Monday night, where they “supped and drank together”. The experience of betrayal has taught him “about human character, its fickleness and resoluteness both”. He lashed out at BJP’s “new India” philosophy of winning elections at all costs, “more by crook, than by hook”.
In Himachal, six of the Congress MLAs who cross-voted later said that 26 MLAs are unhappy with Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhi and want him out. This helped in the BJP bringing a no-confidence motion against him, despite it possessing only 25 MLAs. The Congress has 40 in the 68-member assembly. The other three are Independents, who also supposedly voted against the Congress after professing support.
