Karnataka Rajya Sabha polls: A boycott, count delay, but Congress still wins 3
BENGALURU: In a repeat of the outcome of Rajya Sabha polls held in 2016, the ruling Congress won three seats and the principal Opposition, one, with JD (S) legislators crying foul and boycotting the battle of open ballots which resulted in the second consecutive loss for their billionaire candidate, B.M. Farooq, on Friday. The victorious candidates of Congress-Dr L Hanumanthaiah, Dr Syed Naseer Hussain and G C Chandrasekhar secured 44, 42 and 46 votes respectively while Mr Rajeev Chandrashekar (BJP) polled the highest at 50 votes.
While the votes of revenue minister Kagodu Thimmappa and former minister Baburao Chinchansur were kept aside in the wake of a complaint lodged by JD (S) legislators, two other votes were declared invalid. Seven rebel JD (S) legislators, who violated the whip to support Congress nominee K C Ramamurthy in 2016, voted for Congress candidates this time as well. Former minister H D Revanna and S R Mahesh were those of JD (S) who cast their ballots before the party decided to boycott voting, alleging irregularities. State JD (S) president H D Kumaraswamy lodged a complaint with the Election Commission of India (ECI) demanding annulment of the election process on grounds that Mr Kagodu Thimmappa and Mr Chinchansur were handed fresh ballot papers after they had cross-voted in violation of the whip issued by the ruling party.
The protest by Mr Kumaraswamy and his supporters led to the replacement of returning officer Mr Murthy with Mr Kumaraswamy and a 90 minute delay in counting of votes. The drama continued during counting of votes as well with Mr Kumaraswamy marching in to demand how the votes of two Congress legislators could be deemed as valid. Mr Suman Kumar Das, Secretary, Election Commission of India, however, had issued orders to segregate the votes of these two legislators before commencement of the process of counting. Therefore, the new returning officer, Mr Kumaraswamy, completed counting of votes and declared three Congress and one BJP candidate as winners.
