NEW DELHI: After night-long suspense, the BJP emerged victorious in the fiercely contested Rajya
Sabha elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, where results were delayed due to allegations of voting malpractices and violation of rules.
In Haryana, BJP-backed independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma defeated Congress leader Ajay Maken. The media baron’s win was thanks to two Congress legislators — Kuldeep Bishnoi who voted against his party’s candidate and Kiran Choudhary whose vote was disqualified by the Election Commission. Following Bishnoi’s cross-voting, Congress expelled him from all party posts. The BJP bagged the second seat from Haryana as well, with Krishan Lal Panwar being declared the winner.
The results were declared around 2.30 am on Saturday after counting was put on hold for nine hours. Counting began only after the BJP’s petition to the Election Commission seeking cancellation of two Congress votes was rejected. In the 90-member assembly, 89 MLAs cast votes. Of these, Congress MLA Kiran Choudhry’s vote was cancelled as she “wrongly cast her ballot”. With this, the total number of votes became 88 as independent MLA Balraj Kundu had already decided to abstain from voting.
In a nail-biting finish, Panwar and Shama, who were primarily sponsored by the JJP and supported by the BJP, were respectively declared elected. The value of votes polled by the BJP was 3,600. Panwar received 36 first-preference votes while Sharma got 23. The vote value of Congress was 2,900. In Maharashtra, the BJP won three out of the six seats with Piyush Goyal, Anil Bonde and Dhananjay Mahadik emerging victorious. From the MVA coalition, Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, NCP’s Praful Patel and Congress’ Imran Pratapgarhi made it to the Upper House.