Rajya Sabha Elections: Haryana, Maharashtra results delayed as BJP seeks cancellation of votes

It's usual during the contentious battles for a Rajya Sabha seat and it was no different this time. The counting of votes in the Rajya Sabha elections in Haryana and Maharashtra were delayed on Friday as the BJP approached the Election Commission seeking cancellation of votes of five MLAs in both the states.

Congress countered it by approaching the Election Commission, accusing the BJP of trying to defeat the process of free and fair election and demanded that the Election Commission declare the poll results immediately.

As soon as the polling ended in Haryana, BJP and independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma approached the EC for cancelling the votes of two Congress MLAs Kiran Choudhary and BB Batra claiming that they showed their ballot papers to unauthorised persons after marking them and that the episodes were "duly captured" by the camera.

Congress candidate Ajay Maken, on his part, immediately shot off a letter to the Election Commission urging him to declare the results, as the allegations of the BJP and Sharma were
"false and frivolous".

A delegation of Congress leaders comprising Pawan Kumar Bansal, Vivek Tankha and Ranjeet Ranjan met the Election Commission and handed over Maken's memorandum.

In his letter to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, Maken claimed that there was "unwarranted and illegal interference" by Sharma and the BJP in the election process.

Maken said the returning officer has already rejected the objections of Sharma and the BJP about the votes of Choudhary and Batra, as there has been "no breach of secrecy" of the ballot papers.

"Fearing the loss of face in Rajya Sabha election results the BJP has resorted to cheap politics stalling counting of votes in Haryana. Please have a look at the Returning Officer’s decision rejecting the BJP’s objections. Is democracy still alive in India," he tweeted, sharing the order of the Returning Officer.

"After receiving flak from the returning officer, and the observers of the election commission, BJP is moving to the ECI to stall the counting. Why is the BJP scared of counting of votes???," he added.

The counting in Maharashtra was also delayed following allegations by the BJP that votes cast by three MLAs of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) were not in order.

Cabinet ministers Jitendra Awhad (NCP) and Yashomati Thakur (Congress) and Shiv Sena MLA Suhas Kande violated the rules by handing over their ballots to their party agents instead of only showing them the ballots, the BJP said in its memorandum to the EC.