Indus Valley Times

NEW DELHI, FEB 27 : Voting for the biennial elections in 14 Rajya Sabha seats across Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka is underway. Polling for the lone seat in Himachal Pradesh ended at noon.

The voting process commenced at 9 am in the upper house, with vote counting scheduled to start at 5 pm. 41 leaders for 56 seats have already been elected unopposed including former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief JP Nadda, Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan.

With eight BJP candidates and three from the Samajwadi Party in the fray in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party MLA Manoj Kumar Pandey resigned from the post of party chief whip a day after he skipped a meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav on the Rajya Sabha elections.

In Karnataka, the ruling Congress is claiming it could get support from the rival camp. Fearing cross-voting, both the Congress and the BJP-JD(S) alliance huddled their MLAs in a private resort on February 26 and held a workshop for the new members on election process and how to cast their votes.

In Uttar Pradesh, the stage is set for a high-pitched electoral battle in Uttar Pradesh with the ruling BJP fielding eight candidates and the opposition Samajwadi Party fielding three candidates for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats. Although the BJP has enough numbers to send seven members unopposed, the presence of eighth candidate Sanjay Seth has increased the likelihood of a competitive contest for one seat.

On Monday, as many as eight SP MLAs did not attend a dinner meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav. When asked about it, Yadav said, “Those who wanted to profit from the situation will go. Those who were promised will go.” “Those who put spikes in someone else’ path or dig holes for others themselves fall,” Yadav said in a swipe at the BJP.

The BJP and the SP are the two largest parties in the 403-member state assembly with 252 and 108 MLAs, respectively. The Congress, an alliance partner of the SP, has two seats. BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) has 13 seats, NISHAD Party has six seats, RLD has nine, SBSP six, Jansatta Dal Loktantrik two and the BSP has one seat. Four seats are currently vacant.

To get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, a candidate needs 37 first preference votes.

Candidates fielded by the BJP: Former SP leader Sanjay Seth, former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, general secretary of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant, party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, and former Agra mayor Naveen Jain.

Candidates fielded by the Samajwadi Party: Actor-MP Jaya Bachchan, retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan, and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman.

RLD MLAs before casting their votes for the Rajya Sabha elections, in Lucknow, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024.

RLD MLAs before casting their votes for the Rajya Sabha elections, in Lucknow, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024.PTI

Karnataka: Congress hopeful of winning 3 out of 4 RS seats

Five candidates — Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and G C Chandrasekhar (all Congress), Narayansa Bandage (BJP) and Kupendra Reddy (JD(S)) — are in the fray to fill four vacancies from Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha.

All parties have issued whips to the MLAs, who are the voters in Tuesday’s poll, amid apprehensions of cross-voting.

The ruling Congress on Monday shifted all its MLAs to a hotel apparently to keep the flock together.

The Congress has 133 MLAs, excluding the Speaker, while the BJP and JD(S) have 66 and 19 legislators respectively, in the 223-member House. However, one Congress MLA died on Sunday.

Congress sources claimed that the party has the support of four others including two independents and Darshan Puttanaiah from Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha, and is confident of winning three seats.

Each candidate has to get 45 votes to win, if there are only four candidates in the fray, but in the case of more candidates, then preference votes kick in.

The election was necessitated due to the retirement of Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekar from the BJP, and Congress’ Chandrashekar, L Hanumanthaiah and Hussain, on April 2, after the expiry of their six-year term.

In a setback to BJP-JD(S) alliance, saffron party MLA S T Somashekar voted for Congress during the Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka on Tuesday.

Somashekar, who is upset with the BJP and had been rebellious against the party, voted in favour of the Congress candidate, the BJP leaders said and added that the party will be exploring legal option to deal with him.

“We have got the information that Somashekar has done cross-voting. I believe that people do not like cheating every now and then,” the Leader of Opposition R Ashoka told reporters here.

“I consulted with advocate Vivek Reddy who is our state legal cell president and a high court lawyer. We will ask the Speaker to initiate against him (Somashekar) and explore the possibilities to take action in accordance with the law,” Ashoka, former deputy chief minister, said.

Somashekar had quit the Congress and joined the BJP and served as the minister (in the BJP government) and he was made the Mysuru district in charge minister.

Ashoka termed Somashekar’s decision as “political suicide”.

FIR lodged against JD(S) Rajya Sabha candidate for ‘threatening’ Congress MLAs

An FIR has been registered against the JD(S) leader contesting the Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka, D Kupendra Reddy, and his aides at the Vidhana Soudha police station in Bengaluru, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy said on Tuesday.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah too confirmed that an FIR has been registered for “threatening” the Congress MLAs in connection with the Rajya Sabha elections.

-PTI