CHANDIGARH: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress won one seat each in the Rajya Sabha elections for Haryana as the counting of votes ended past midnight, following allegations of violation of voter secrecy.
BJP nominee 58-year-old Sanjay Bhatia, a former Lok Sabha MP, and SC activist 61-year old Karamvir Boudh of the Congress won the election through preference votes.
The counting of votes, which was scheduled to be started at 5 pm, was delayed for over five hours after both BJP and Congress lodged complaints with the Election Commission of India about “vote secrecy violations”.
Congress candidate Karamvir Singh Boudh also filed a complaint to the ECI against the Returning Officer for his alleged partisan conduct.
Haryana cabinet minister Krishan Kumar Bedi said the BJP raised complaints with the ECI over "violation of vote secrecy" by two Congress MLAs -- Bharat Singh Beniwal from Ellenabad and Paramvir Singh from Tohana.
"Two Congress MLAs did not have their ballot folded as it should have been, and violated the secrecy of their vote. We have complained to the Election Commission," he had said. The counting of votes started only after the ECI gave a go-ahead in this regard, said sources.
Speaking to the media, Bhatia, the BJP candidate, had claimed that five Congress MLAs cross-voted.
Apart from Bhatia and Boudh, there were three candidates in the election fray, including independent candidate Satish Nandal, who was backed by the BJP as he had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 assembly polls as its nominee.
Addressing the media late at night, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini congratulated both the leaders and called the elections "interesting". He also took a dig at the Congress, accusing it of holding its MLAs captive and transferring them to different places, referring to the shifting of Congress legislators from Himachal Pradesh. "I have seen for the first time that Congress did not trust its MLAs," he said.
To prevent "cross-voting", Congress had shifted its 31 MLAs to a private resort in Kufri near Shimla and then to Kasauli, before they were brought to Chandigarh in a bus.
Saini also lashed out at the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) for abstaining from voting and said it acted as a "B team" of the Congress. The INLD indirectly supported the Congress, he claimed.
When asked about the independent candidate who was backed by the saffron party, Saini said, "How could they stop anyone from contesting the poll?"
After the victory of Congress nominee Boudh, Leader of the opposition and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said, "This is a victory of 'Prajatantar' and defeat of 'vote chori'".
In the 90-member House, 83 valid votes were polled, after two INLD MLAs abstained from voting, four Congress votes and one BJP vote were declared invalid.
The final tally revealed a close shave for the opposition as Boudh polled 28 votes and Nandal got 16 votes.
As per the proportional representation formula, a candidate needed a vote value of 2,767 to secure victory. To win the election, a candidate was required a quota of 27.66 votes.
The vote value of Boudh was 2,800, and that of Nandal was 2,733.33. The victory margin of Boudh was just 0.33 vote value.
In the Haryana assembly, BJP has 48 MLAs, Congress has 37, INLD has two MLAs, while three legislators are Independents.
The two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana are set to fall vacant as BJP members Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra are set to complete their terms on April 9.