RS polls: Cong bags 3 seats in Raj, BJP wins big in K'taka; row in Maha & Haryana counting

The high-stakes Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Haryana for 16 seats have been completed. In Rajasthan, Congress has won three seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party was victorious in one. In Karnataka, the BJP bagged three seats and Congress won one. Meanwhile, the counting of votes was put on hold in Maharashtra and Haryana amid controversial circumstances involving allegations of violation of rules.

Elections for 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently. All 41 candidates in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were declared elected unopposed last Friday. This left 16 seats in four states for which elections were necessitated.

Rajasthan

For four Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan, five candidates were in the fray. All three Congress candidates- Pramod Tiwari, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Singh Surjewala - have emerged victorious. BJP candidate Ghanshyam Tiwari has also won. Independent candidate and media baron Subhash Chandra has lost.

Congratulating newly-elected Congress MPs, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot called it a "victory of democracy" and hoped that they will be able to strongly advocate the rights of Rajasthan in Delhi. 

Slamming BJP, Gehlot said that Congress from the beginning had required numbers for the majority. "But BJP tried horse-trading by fielding an independent. The solidarity of our MLAs has given a befitting reply to this effort. The BJP will face a similar defeat in the 2023 assembly elections as well," he stated.

Karnataka

All three Rajya Sabha candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnar - Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh and outgoing Member of Legislative Council (MLC)  Lehar Singh Siroya- have emerged victorious. Congress' Jairam Ramesh has also won.

Congress' Mansoor Ali Khan and Janata Dal (Secular)'s D Kupendra Reddy have lost after failing to secure the required numbers. The fight for the fourth seat was a direct contest between Siroya, Khan and Reddy.

Counting halted in Maha, Haryana over accusations of violation of rules

The counting of votes has been put on hold in Maharashtra and Haryana over alleged violation of rules, officials said. The counting was held up in Maharashtra after BJP alleged three Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) MLAs violated the model code for voting. 

"We have filed an appeal before the Election Commission of India, seeking that their votes be held invalid," said a state BJP leader.

The BJP has alleged that Jitendra Awhad (NCP) and Yashomati Thakur (Congress) handed over their ballots to their party agents instead of only showing them the ballots, while Shiv Sena legislator Suhas Kande showed his ballot to two different agents.

The counting has been put on hold in Haryana for identical reasons. The BJP and the Independent candidate backed by it have urged the EC to cancel the votes of two Congress MLAs.

BJP nominee Krishan Lal Panwar and Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma shot off a missive to the EC, alleging Congress MLAs Kiran Choudhary and BB Batra showed their ballot papers to unauthorised persons after marking them and that the episodes were "duly captured" on cameras.

In both the states, Congress have filed counter complaints.