RS polls: Congress set to pocket 20 BRS MLAs

Hyderabad: The Congress has decided to field three candidates for three Rajya Sabha seats that will fall vacant on April 2 due to the retirement of BRS MPs, with sources saying the ruling party has the support of 20 BRS MLAs, to deal a sharp blow to the pink party and sweep the polls.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) will issue the poll notification on Thursday and the elections will be held on February 27 for the seats that will be vacated by Joginapally Santosh Kumar, Badugula Lingaiah Yadav and Vaddiraju Ravichandra, all of the BRS.

The last date to file nominations is February 15, scrutiny of nominations will be done on February 16, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is February 20, and polling and counting of votes will be done on February 27.

Currently, all seven Rajya Sabha seats are represented by BRS members, but the Congress is planning to dent its numbers soon.

To win a Rajya Sabha seat, for which only MLAs vote, the winning mark is 31, determined by the formula: Total number of MLAs / (number of Rajya Sabha seats + 1) + 1, which will translate to 119/(3+1)+1. For Telangana state, this will be 30.75, which will be rounded off to 31.

While the Congress has the strength to win two seats given its strength of 65 MLAs, including one from friendly CPI, the BRS has the strength to retain one seat as it has 39 MLAs. But the Congress wants to field candidates for all three seats, with hopes of cross-voting from the BRS, and is reportedly in touch with a few BRS MLAs.

The buzz in Congress circles is that 20 BRS MLAs of the 39 expressed their willingness to vote for the Congress’ third candidate.

TPCC working president and former MLA T. Jagga Reddy, while addressing a press conference in Gandhi Bhavan on Wednesday, said that 20 BRS MLAs are ready to join the Congress anytime.

The ballot paper for Rajya Sabha elections will contain the names of all candidates and MLAs have to mark their first, second and third preferences. The preferential votes will be counted to decide the winners.

To check cross-voting, however, the Rajya Sabha polls are ‘semi-open’, with each MLA having to show his or her marked ballot to the party’s authorised agent in the polling booth, before they are put into the ballot box.

Showing a marked ballot to anyone other than the party’s authorised agent will render the vote invalid. Not showing the ballot to the agent will also mean that the vote cannot be counted, as per norms.

Independent candidates are barred from showing their ballots to anyone. However, cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls does not attract disqualification and parties cannot issue whip to MLAs.

The Supreme Court, while declining to interfere with the open ballot system, ruled that not voting for the party candidate will not attract disqualification under the anti-defection law.

As voters, MLAs retain their freedom to vote for a candidate of their choice. However, the court observed that since the party would know who voted against its candidate, it is free to take disciplinary action against the legislator concerned.

To contest the Rajya Sabha election, each candidate has to be proposed by at least 10 MLAs. The AIMIM (seven) and BJP (eight) cannot field a candidate unless they get the support of other parties.