Hopes rest on ‘voice of conscience’ as 16 RS seats in four states go to polls
With voting for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls under way across various states, political weather-wanes predict thunderstorms with a deafening echo of ‘antaraatma ki awaaz’ (voice of conscience) in Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
The polling started at 9 am and will continue till 4 pm. The counting of votes will take place at 5 pm.
The ordinarily mundane exercise, wherein parties stick to fielding candidates as per their legislative strength in respective assemblies to avoid a contest, has in recent years become a competition in horse-trading. The current round of Rajya Sabha polls is no different even if 41 of the 55 vacant Rajya Sabha berths – those from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand – saw candidates across the political spectrum getting elected unopposed.
Also read: Chidambaram, Sibal, Misa Bharti among 41 elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha
In Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka, though, political niceties have been relegated to a corner. Each of these states has more candidates in the fray than the number of Rajya Sabha seats up for election.
Rajasthan: Chandra spooks Cong again
The biggest challenge is for the beleaguered Congress party that is hoping to win three RS berths from Rajasthan, two from Karnataka and one from Haryana. Already facing flak from a cross-section of party leaders for its choice of candidates in the biennial polls, the Congress is staring at the possibility of its nominees — Pramod Tiwari in Rajasthan, Ajay Maken in Haryana and Mansoor Khan in Karnataka — losing the election either due to possible cross-voting by a section of party MLAs or merely on account of poor electoral planning and misplaced brinkmanship.
In Rajasthan and Haryana, respectively, the party has been forced to sequester its MLAs after Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra and ITV managing director Kartikeya Sharma entered the poll fray as independent candidates backed by the BJP.
The Congress’s decision to not field a local leader from Rajasthan for any of the three seats it hopes to win from the state — besides Tiwari, it has fielded Randeep Surjewala and Mukul Wasnik — has already irked several party leaders in the desert state. No strangers to spending long spells cooped up in posh resorts due to a threat of poaching, Congress MLAs and other legislators supporting the Ashok Gehlot-led state government had been sequestered at a five-star resort in Udaipur.
The Congress has 108 MLAs in the 200-member Rajasthan assembly and claims to enjoy the support of 21 other independent legislators. The BJP, with 71 MLAs, has named Ghanshyam Tiwari as its candidate and is also confident of ensuring a win for Chandra by transferring its excess votes to him and getting some Congress MLAs to listen to their ‘inner voice’ that presumably bats for the controversial media baron.
To win, each candidate in Rajasthan requires a minimum of 41 first preference votes. The Congress believes Surjewala and Wasnik would win on the strength of 82 party MLAs while Pramod Tiwari will get elected by securing votes of the remaining 26 Congress legislators as well as the 13 independent and other MLAs from smaller parties such as the RLD and CPM.
Chandra, on the other hand, claims at least eight Congress MLAs will vote for him and wants more to listen to their ‘antaraatma’. Three lawmakers from Hanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), an ally of the Gehlot government, have already heeded the voice of their conscience and promised to vote for Chandra.
Chandra, of course, is a veteran of betting on the elastic conscience of lawmakers. In the 2016 Rajya Sabha polls from Haryana, the Zee TV founder had contested the election as an independent backed by the BJP and trounced Congress nominee RK Anand after votes cast by 12 Congress MLAs were disqualified on grounds of using an ink to mark the ballots that was different from the one prescribed by the Election Commission.
The BJP and Chandra, say sources, are counting on the simmering discontent within the Congress legislative party against the Gehlot government and the party high command’s choice of Rajya Sabha candidates, to deliver a shock defeat for Tiwari, who has been fielded on the insistence of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Haryana: Kartikeya may jolt Maken
In Haryana, Kartikeya Sharma’s entry in the poll fray has queered the pitch for Congress’s Maken. The party had moved 28 of its MLAs to a resort in Chhattisgarh where, sources say, their phones were impounded and jammers installed around the property for added precaution, just in case some conscientious MLA decided to borrow the phone of a resort staffer and speak to Sharma or someone from the BJP.
The Congress legislative party in Haryana is an even more divided house than Rajasthan, with several party lawmakers reportedly unhappy with the perceived surrender that the Gandhis have made before former chief minister and current Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Senior party MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi has been striking discordant notes ever since interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi rejected his claim for heading the Haryana Congress and named Hooda confidant Udai Bhan as the state unit chief.
In the 90-member Haryana assembly, the Congress has 31 MLAs. To ensure Maken’s victory, the party needs a minimum of 30 first preference votes. The BJP has 40 MLAs and has an ally in Dushyant Chautala’s Jananayak Janata Party (JJP) which has 10 legislators. The saffron party also claims to have support of seven independent MLAs.
The legislative strength of the Manohar Lal Khattar government guarantees a victory for BJP candidate Krishan Panwar. The BJP plans to transfer its excess votes to Sharma and has assured him that JJP MLAs as well as independents supporting the Khattar government will also vote for him. This means, at least at the face of it, the ITV boss already has the assured support of 27 MLAs (10 BJP, 10 JJP and 7 independents) and will need just three more votes to make his Rajya Sabha debut.
What complicates things further for the Congress in Haryana is that Sharma also belongs to an influential political family that was once within the Congress fold and continues to enjoy support of several party lawmakers even today. The 40-year-old Sharma is the son of controversial former Congress leader Venod Sharma and the son-in-law of former Haryana assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma. His mother, Shakti Rani Sharma, is currently the Mayor of Ambala, while his brother is Manu Sharma, who was convicted to serve a life sentence for the 1999 murder of Jessica Lal but was released from jail in June 2020. Though Venod Sharma is now a member of the BJP, he continues to enjoy significant clout with several Congress MLAs.
Karnataka: Cong, JD (S) wrangle
In Karnataka, four Rajya Sabha seats are up for polls and the BJP, Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) have each fielded candidates in excess of their legislative strength to deliver easy victories. The BJP has fielded Nirmala Sitharaman, actor Jaggesh and Lehar Siroya though its legislative strength of 121 MLAs can guarantee a win only for Sitharaman and Jaggesh. A candidate in Karnataka needs 45 first preference votes to win, which means the BJP will need to look beyond its flock to get the 14 votes Siroya needs to win after securing the 31 excess votes that the saffron party will be left after Sitharaman and Jaggesh secure their wins.
Also read: JD(S) packs MLAs to hotel ahead of Rajya Sabha polls
Similarly, the Congress has fielded Jairam Ramesh and Mansoor Ali Khan though its legislative strength of 70 MLAs can assure a win only for the former. The Grand Old Party was hoping that after transferring its 25 remaining votes to Khan, it will make up for the shortfall of 20 votes by securing the support of HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) that has 32 MLAs and can’t hope to win any of the vacant Rajya Sabha berths based purely on its legislative strength.
The Congress seems to have, however, made one fatal miscalculation – it seems to have taken for granted the support of JD (S) lawmakers without actually speaking to Deve Gowda or his son and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy. The JD (S) has put up its own candidate – Kupendra Reddy – and now wants the Congress to transfer its excess votes to him.
Like the Congress in Rajasthan and Haryana, the JD (S) in Karnataka had packed off its MLAs to a resort to isolate them from expected overtures from the Congress and BJP. However, former chief minister Siddaramaiah managed to send a letter to the JD (S) MLAs, tugging at their antaraatma, and urging them to support Khan in a bid to defeat the “communal” BJP and uphold secular politics.
Maharashtra: Political tempers rise
After more than two decades, Maharashtra is witnessing a contest in the Rajya Sabha polls as there are seven candidates in the fray for six seats. From BJP, Union minister Goyal, Anil Bonde and Dhananjay Mahadik are in the fray, NCP has fielded former Union minister Praful Patel, Shiv Sena candidates are Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar while the Congress has fielded Imran Pratapgarhi. The contest is for the sixth seat, between BJP’s Mahadik and Sena’s Pawar.
Both the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress, and the BJP are banking on the 25 additional votes of smaller parties and independents to see their candidates through for the sixth seat.
Political temperature rose in Maharashtra as AIMIM decided to support the ruling alliance, saying that they have put some conditions for the support. While this prompted Raj Thackeray to question Shiv Sena’s ‘hindutva’, Sena’s Raut exuded confidence.
“An atmosphere that the election would be a close contest is being created, however the four candidates of the MVA will win the election after the first round of elections. The Uddhav Thackeray government has the support of 169 legislators. In today’s election, BJP should not be shocked if we get more (than 169),” Raut told reporters outside the state assembly.
Also read: Maharashtra: AIMIM MLAs to vote for Cong candidate in Rajya Sabha polls
The strength of the 288-member state assembly is down to 285 because of a vacancy due to the death of Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke and a special court’s rejection of the pleas of NCP’s Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh, in jail for alleged involvement in money laundering cases, seeking a day’s bail to vote.
