SP fears cross-voting; SP chief whip quits

Lucknow: Voting for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh ended on Tuesday evening, amid concerns in the Samajwadi Party over cross-voting and the party chief whip quitting while polling was underway.
At present there are 399 members in the 403-member Assembly with four vacancies. Out of the 399 MLAs, 395 exercised their voting rights on Tuesday, three of them could not vote as they are in jail, while officials could not confirm the other MLA who did not cast the ballot.

Voting began at 9 am and ended at 4 pm. "The counting of votes will start at 5 pm and the results are likely to be declared tonight," said Returning Officer Brijbhushan Dubey.
Many senior leaders including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav cast their votes.
Amid concerns over cross-voting and SP chief whip Manoj Pandey quitting while polling was underway, Yadav warned action will be taken against such MLAs. "Those who want to profit from the situation will go. Those who were given assurances (by the BJP) will go," Yadav told reporters at the assembly before casting his vote. 

"The BJP can adopt all tricks to win elections. It must have given assurance (to some MLAs) of some profit... BJP will do anything to win," he added. "Those who don't have the courage to fight will go. Some might have been afraid for their security, some might have been threatened or promised something."

The ruling BJP and the principal opposition SP have the numbers in the Assembly to send seven and three members respectively unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, but the BJP fielded an eighth candidate, making the contest interesting. 

Talking to reporters, BJP leader Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya claimed that Yadav made a mistake by fielding his third candidate and he does not the numbers.
"The SP has become the 'Samaptwadi Party' and all the eight candidates of the BJP will win," he added. Pathak too asserted that all BJP candidates were going to win.

SP MLAs Rakesh Pratap Singh, Abhay Singh and Rakesh Pandey, who were among eight party MLAs to have skipped Yadav's Monday night meeting, arrived in the same vehicle. "We will cast our votes as per our inner voices," Rakesh Pratap Singh said.

The BJP and the SP are the two largest parties in the 403-member House with 252 MLAs and 108 MLAs respectively. The Congress, an alliance partner of the SP, has two seats.
BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) has 13 seats, the Nishad Party has six seats, the RLD has nine seats, SBSP six, Jansatta Dal Loktantrik two and the BSP has one seat. Four seats are currently vacant.

The candidates fielded by the BJP are: Former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, general secretary of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant (Bind), party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, former Agra mayor Naveen Jain and industrialist Sanjay Seth.

The Samajwadi Party has fielded actor-MP Jaya Bachchan, retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman.
Seth, a former SP leader, joined the BJP in 2019. Any cross-voting by SP legislators could get Seth elected.

To get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, a candidate needs nearly 37 first-preference votes.

All 68 members vote for lone RS seat in HP 

Shimla: Amid fears of cross-voting, polling for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh ended on Tuesday, with Congress MLA from Chintpurni Sudershan Babloo casting the last vote.

The polling, which started at 9 am, was brisk and all 68 members voted. Independent MLA from Hamirpur Ashish was the first to cast his vote. Congress MLA Babloo was brought to the Assembly in a helicopter as he was reportedly unwell. 

After casting his vote, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said the MLAs have voted as per the ideology of the party. "We have 40 MLAs in the state assembly, and unless MLAs are bought off, we will get all the votes," he said.

The Sukhu's remarks have added to the speculation of cross-voting. 

Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur earlier said that it was the democratic right of the MLAs to vote and it was not necessary that the candidate be elected unopposed. "We have fielded the candidate gauging the situation and hope that all MLAs would exercise their conscious vote," he added.

The BJP has fielded Harsh Mahajan against Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

The BJP asserted that Mahajan was on a sound footing as several Congress MLAs have responded to their call to exercise "conscience vote". Mahajan said that the body language of the Congress leaders was not corroborating their claims that all 40 party MLAs would vote for party candidate Singhvi.

HPCC president Pratibha Singh's remarks that several MLAs were unhappy and senior party leader Rajinder Rana should have been accommodated in the ministry fuelled the speculations of cross-voting. 

Mahajan, a three-time Congress MLA and former minister, had resigned from the party in September 2022 ahead of the assembly polls and joined the BJP. 

The Congress has a clear majority with 40 out of the 68 MLAs and the support of three independent MLAs.

Despite the fact that the BJP, with 25 MLAs, is far behind in the number game, it has forced a contest by fielding Mahajan against Singhvi. 

The Congress had issued a whip to its MLAs to vote for Singhvi following which the BJP had accused the ruling party of issuing whip to their members to put pressure on them and maintained that the MLAs have been elected democratically and have the right to vote as per their wish.

The BJP candidate has sent a complaint to the chief election commissioner drawing his attention to the three-line whip issued by the Congress to vote for the party candidate.
In his complaint, Mahajan said that such a whip is not only unethical but also against the conducting of elections to the Rajya Sabha as it will affect the decision making ability of the MLAs.

Karnataka: BJP confirms cross-voting by S T Somashekar 

Bengaluru: In a setback to BJP-JD(S) alliance, saffron party MLA S T Somashekar voted for Congress during the Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka on Tuesday. 

Somashekar, who is upset with the BJP and had been rebellious against the party, voted in favour of the Congress candidate, the BJP leaders said and added that the party will be exploring legal option to deal with him.
"We have got the information that Somashekar has done cross-voting. I believe that people do not like cheating every now and then," the Leader of Opposition R Ashoka told reporters here.

"I consulted with advocate Vivek Reddy who is our state legal cell president and a high court lawyer. We will ask the Speaker to initiate against him (Somashekar) and explore the possibilities to take action in accordance with the law," Ashoka, former deputy chief minister, said.

Somashekar had quit the Congress and joined the BJP and served as the minister (in the BJP government) and he was made the Mysuru district in charge minister.

Ashoka termed Somashekar's decision as "political suicide".