Birender, Zee group’s Subhash Chandra win Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana

Chandigarh: Union minister Birender Singh was today re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Haryana while BJP backed-Independent candidate and media baron Subhash Chandra won the second seat in a contest marred by cross-voting with 14 votes of Congress being rejected.

Chandra defeated INLD and Congress backed-Independent candidate R K Anand after 14 votes of the Congress were rejected, state Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma told media here.

Singh was assured of a comfortable win while the main fight was between Chandra and Anand for the second seat.

Notably Congress had yesterday announced support for the INLD-backed Anand, a lawyer by profession, for one of the seats in the biennial elections.

The Haryana Assembly has 90 members. Out of 90 votes, Singh got 40, Anand 21 and Chandra got 15 votes while 14 votes were rejected.

Therefore, in case of rejection of 14 votes, Singh needed 26 votes for his win and his 14 votes as second preference were transferred to Chandra, taking his total number of votes to 29, Sharma said.

At present, BJP has 47 MLAs in the Assembly, INLD 19, Congress 17 (with Kuldeep Bishnoi’s two-member HJC merging with the party recently) and BSP and SAD 1 each while 5 are Independents.

After being re-elected, Singh thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah for re-nominating him.

However, he said it will be his last political innings.

He rejected allegations of any horse trading saying nothing of that sort happened.

“Congress votes were found to be invalid. After votes which were needed for my victory, the share of my votes got transferred to Chandra and this took the tally of his votes to 29,” he said.

Singh claimed that former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda did the same thing with Anand what he did to him while referring to rejection of 14 Congress votes.

After his candidate Anand faced defeat, leader of Opposition in Haryana Vidhan Sabha and INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala blamed Congress and claimed, “Congress party’s 14 votes were rejected because they registered their votes with another pen other than the one provided by the Returning Officer to record their votes in the voting compartment.”

A visibly upset Chautala alleged, “Congress, which used to say BJP is a communal party, has compromised with the same and they have become B team of the saffron party.”

On Chandra’s victory, Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said that the “unholy alliance” between Congress and INLD was rejected.

Congress likely to seek explanation from Hooda on Haryana Rajya Sabha result

New Delhi: The Congress is likely to seek explanation from former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who may face action after MLAs owing allegiance to him rebelled against the party’s decision to back Independent R K Anand in the Rajya Sabha election in the state.

Sources said the party was shocked by the behaviour of the 14 MLAs who apparently got their votes invalid by marking the ballot with a wrong pen and would go into the entire issue and fix responsibility.

For the record, AICC General Secretary B K Hariprasad in-charge of Haryana said, “We have sought a report from the PCC and the Independent candidate and we are going to lodge a complaint with the Election Commission about the way the election was conducted.”

He also saw prima facie a conspiracy from the government’s side and said the party will find out the truth. “We will fight it politically and legally.”

Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid termed Anand’s defeat by BJP-backed media baron and Independent candidate Subhash Chandra as a setback and disappointing and said it needs to be found out what really happened.

“It is certainly disappointing. What really went wrong needs to be found out. I am sure the general secretary concerned will look into the reasons of invalidity of the Congress votes,” he said.

Congress spokesman R P N Singh accused the Modi government of using money and muscle power to win these elections.

“This Modi government is trying to throttle democracy exactly in the same manner what they did in Uttarakhand, what they did in Arunachal Pradesh and we see that happening again today,” he said.

The defeat of Anand came as a bolt from the blue for the Congress and its high command, which was confident that its strategy to trounce Chandra would succeed.

Only yesterday, the Congress Legislature Party at its meeting had authorised party chief Sonia Gandhi to decide on who to vote for and she had directed voting in favour of Anand.

A senior Congress leader, who declined to be identified, said it appeared a clear case of sabotage as one of the ballots was seen to be blank, while 12 others were marked by a wrong writing instrument.

Hooda, who had been at the helm of the state as Congress chief minister for 10 years, was apparently feeling uneasy ever since Ashok Tanwar was made state party chief by Rahul Gandhi.

He was reportedly pitching for the party abstaining from voting in favour of a candidate supported by INLD, a traditional arch rival of the Congress in the state.

At yesterday’s CLP meeting, Hooda and the dozen-odd MLAs supporting him, had arrived late.

PTI