Haryana CM lauds Congress MLA Bishnoi for RS voting; 'He listened to his inner voice'

After a high-stakes drama over charges of polling rule violations that delayed the counting by more than seven hours, the BJP's Krishan Lal Panwar and the saffron party-backed Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma were declared elected for the two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana. Whereas the Congress' Ajay Maken lost to Sharma over a narrow margin as his party's MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi voted for the BJP-backed independent candidate.

Speaking to reporters after the victory of the BJP, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that while one Congress vote was rejected, its party MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi voted in favour of independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma. "He (Kuldeep Bishnoi) has voted openly after listening to his inner conscience. I can say that he must have voted after being influenced by the policies and achievements of the Modi government. He didn't even think about what the Congress party is going to do with him after this," CM Manohar Lal Khattar told reporters. He further said that Bishnoi took the opportunity to connect with the nationalist ideology of the BJP and voted in favour of its backed candidate. 

Reacting to Congress' strategy of keeping its MLAs in Chhattisgarh's Raipur for seven days, ahead of the polls, CM Khattar said, "This shows the kind of training that they gave to their MLAs for over seven days and then also failed. We also gave training to our MLAs for one day and we passed. It is our one day versus their seven days," CM said. 

Kuldeep Bishnoi broke Ajay Maken's RS dream

According to Returning Officer R K Nandal, Panwar got 36 votes, while Sharma got 23 first preference votes and 6.6 transferred from the BJP, taking his tally to 29.6. Maken who got 29 votes, lost on account of no second preference votes. While the value of votes polled by the BJP was 3,600, securing the first seat for Panwar, Sharma won the second seat with a vote value of 2,960, including 660 that got transferred from the BJP candidate as second preference votes. The Congress’ value of votes was 2,900 as the MLA from Adampur, Bishnoi voted in favour of BJP & JJP-backed independent candidate Sharma.

Speaking to reporters about the voting in the Rajya Sabha elections, Khattar said that Congress got 29 votes, while Kartikeya Sharma got 29.65 votes. Explaining Sharma's vote, he said that Sharma got 23 votes and Krishan Panwar’s 6.65 votes were transferred to him as well making him victorious.

Reportedly, there was a divide in the Haryana Congress over Ajay Maken's candidature as many MLAs identified the senior Congress leader as an outsider and believe that candidates belonging from Haryana must be elected