BENGALURU: Congress party wrested three seats and the BJP won one seat in the biennial elections held for four seats for the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka on Tuesday. It was all expected except for a drama involving two rebel BJP MLAs who defied the party's whip and favoured the Congress candidates. Yeswantpur MLA S T Somashekar voted in favour of the Congress candidate and Yallapur MLA Shivaram Hebbar abstained from exercising his franchise.
Former union minister and AICC treasurer Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and G C Chandrashekar of Congress, Narayansa Bhandage of BJP won for a tenure of six years from April.3, 2024.
Four seats from the state were at stake. The BJP-JD(S) alliance which had fielded a fifth candidate in former RS member D Kupendra Reddy, of JD(S), faced a setback. Reddy was able to get 36 votes as against 45 votes required for a win.
Out of 224 elected MLAs in the assembly 222 have exercised their franchise and all the votes were found valid. While Hebbar abstained from voting and Surapura MLA Raja Venkatappa Nayaka died on Sunday.
S T Somashekar defended his move as he alleged that union finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman whom he claimed to have voted during last RS polls did not give grants for development or an appointment to meet her up either.
"I have exercised my franchise as per my conscience and also showed it to the concerned authorised leader(the BJP agent)", he said after casting his vote. This time he voted for Ajay Maken, according to sources.
"The JDS-BJP alliance is further strengthened by the Rajya Sabha elections. The traitors(Somashekar and Hebbar) who jumped from Congress to BJP and enjoyed power now betrayed the BJP by cross-voting. BJP is not shocked by this, neither am I. there is a real game in the Lok Sabha elections", remarked former CM and JD(S) chief H D Kumaraswamy.
He felt that JD(S) achieved its goal of keeping the flock together which was more important than winning or losing the RS polls.
However, the JD(S) and BJP workers had staged a protest alleging that huge money changed hands with regard to Somashekar's cross voting. They demanded that the assembly speaker take action and disqualify him from his MLA post.
The BJP leadership including state chief B Y Vijayendra and Leader of opposition R Ashoka held deliberations with the High Court lawyer Vivek Reddy to take legal action against Somashekar.
"Somashekar has cast his vote as per his conscience. It's a vote against the unholy BJP-JDS alliance", remarked DCM and KPCC president D K Shivakumar while adding that he will consider extending legal support to Somashekar.
"We are aware what could have happened if our numbers wobbled a bit. I don't want to talk more about this.", he remarked replying to Kumaraswamy's statement that keeping the flock together was more important than winning or losing for the JD(S).
The Congress despite having 134 MLAs was under pressure to ensure the victory of its third candidate G C Chandrashekar. It made a cautious move by shifting its MLAs to a hotel on Monday evening to check the possibility of some of them cross voting in favour of BJP-JD(S) alliance candidate Kupendra Reddy as the latter had contacted about forty one of them over phone. The independents Latha Mallikarjun and Puttaswamy Gowda, Sarvodaya Karnataka Party MLA Darshan Puttannaiah and KRPP Gangavathi MLA and mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy also came for the rescue as the GOP was able to sail through. "I have exercised my franchise as per my conscience", Reddy said.
Total votes: 224
Parties' strength
Congress:134
BJP:66
JD(S):19
Independents:4
Polled votes:222(an MLA abstained and another had died)
Magic figure:45
Ajay Maken:47 votes
Syed Naseer Hussain:47
G C Chandrashekar:45
Narayansa Bhandage:46
D Kupendra Reddy:36
