Rajya Sabha elections: Opposition jolted by cross voting in Bihar, Odisha

In Odisha and Bihar, one each candidate lost to BJP-backed nominees after opposition MLAs either voted for the rivals or remained absent in casting their ballots.

New Delhi: Opposition on Monday was served a jolt in Rajya Sabha elections in Odisha and Bihar where its one each candidate lost to BJP-backed nominees after its MLAs either voted for the rivals or remained absent from casting their ballots.

In Haryana where the counting started only late at night, the Congress approached the Election Commission in Delhi accusing the returning officer of compromising the integrity of the process. BJP’s Sanjay Bhatia, BJP-backed independent Satish Nandal and Congress’ Karamvir Boudh are in the fray for two seats.

Bihar saw the NDA winning all the five seats with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, BJP chief Nitin Nabin, Union Minister Ram Nath Thakur, BJP’s Shivesh Kumar and RLM’s Upendra Kushwaha romping home comfortably after three Congress MLAs and one RJD lawmaker refused to come to vote, leaving RJD candidate and sitting MP AD Singh losing the battle.

Odisha saw all two BJP candidates – Manmohan Samal and Sujeet Kumar – and BJD’s Santrupt Misra winning. A BJP-backed independent Dilip Ray gave a shocker to BJD-Congress common candidate Datteswar Hota, who on paper had enough numbers to cross the hurdle, but was undone by three Congress and eight BJD MPs who voted in favour of BJP-backed candidates.

Already, 26 candidates have been elected unopposed in seven states with BJP cornering seven of them, Congress five, Trinamool Congress four, DMK three and Shiv Sena, RPI(A), NCP, NCP(SP), AIADMK, PMK and UPPL one each. The winners include Sharad Pawar, Abhishek Singhvi, Tiruchi Siva and Vinod Tawade.

The RJD defeat in Bihar came despite non-allies five-member AIMIM and one-member BSP filling in for the deficit of the I.N.D.I.A bloc, which had 35 MLAs on paper. Of the 35, Surender Kushwaha, Manoj Biswas and Manohar Prasad Singh (all Congress) and Faisal Rahman (RJD) did not come to vote.

If all the I.N.D.I.A. MLAs had voted along with AIMIM and BSP, Singh would have romped home, as he would have got the required 41 first preference votes.

Nitish and Nabin gathered 44 first preference votes each while Thakur and Kushwaha polled 42 votes each. Kumar secured 30 first preference votes but managed to win with second preference votes that outweighed Singh’s.

In Odisha, at least three Congress – Ramesh Jena, Dasarathi Gomango, Sofia Firdous – and two BJD MLAs – Devi Ranjan Tripathy and Souvic Biswal – have cross voted, which helped Ray, a former BJP Union Minister who fought as an independent, win against Hota.

The election had seen BJP and Congress reaching an unprecedented agreement to support a common candidate to keep the saffron party away from winning an extra seat. The BJD-Congress combine had enough votes for the smooth sailing of Hota but the defections undid the leadership’s efforts.