India / BJP wins 1 Rajya Sabha seat in Rajasthan, 2 in Madhya Pradesh

Jaipur: Congress has won two seats from Rajasthan in Rajya Sabha elections, while BJP has won 1 seat from the state, while the saffron party won two out of the three seats on offer from Madhya Pradesh leaving one for the Congress. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP has won all four Rajya Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh, according to news agency ANI.

The results for the 19 RS seats that went to polls on Friday are being announced.

In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP had fielded senior leader and former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and former professor of a government college Sumer Singh Solanki.

The Congress had fielded veteran leader Digvijaya Singh and Dalit leader Phool Singh Baraiya. Digvijaya Singh was the party’s first candidate.

The Congress has 92 MLAs in the MP assembly and it had asked 54 of these to vote for the party’s first preference candidate Digvijaya Singh.

PTI quoted officials to say that all three including BJP’s Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sumer Singh Solanki and Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh had been declared elected from Madhya Pradesh.

In Rajasthan, Congress candidates K C Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi were declared winner, while Rajendra Gehlot of the BJP also got elected, PTI said quoting an assembly official.

The BJP’s second candidate for Rajasthan quota of seats, Onkar Singh Lakhawat lost. With the wins on Friday, the number of Congress party’s Rajya Sabha MPs from Rajasthan has increased to three out of a total of 10. The rest seven are BJP members.

The counting of votes for four Rajya Sabha seats in Gujarat was delayed due to a demand by the Congress to invalidate two BJP votes-- by MLA Kesrisinh Solanki and minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama-- on different grounds. The election commission was seized with the matter, PTI reported.

The Congress claimed Chudasama’s election to the assembly had been annulled by the Gujarat High Court last month and therefore he was ineligible to vote. The BJP pointed out that the Supreme Court has stayed the HC order. Congress also questioned Solanki’s vote, claiming he was accompanied inside the polling booth by an unauthorised person. The person being referred to, was an assistant Solanki brought to pull his wheelchair, reported PTI.

A total of 19 Rajya Sabha seats--- four each from Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, three each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two from Jharkhand and one each from Manipur, Mizoram, and Meghalaya—were voted for today.

Before the elections were held today, the BJP had 75 members, Congress 39, followed by 13 of the TMC and eight of the Samajwadi Party in the Upper House. TRS and DMK have 7 members each. The party wise tally will change after the results from the elections held today.