Image courtesy: financialexpress.com
For the first time, reportedly since 1988, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become the only party to have 100 members in the Rajya Sabha. It reached the milestone after winning two seats in Assam and one in Tripura on March 31.
The BJP and its ally the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) have won all four Rajya Sabha seats from Tripura, Nagaland, and Assam. For the first time in Parliament’s history, the Congress does not have a presence from Northeast India, in the Upper House. According to a news report in The Times of India, the “BJP won the Tripura seat on the strength of its numbers and the Nagaland seat uncontested.”
It was alleged “cross-voting and invalid opposition votes” in Assam helped it win the two seats, with its ally. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma however was jubilant, saying the party’s “strategy was to bank on the conscience of legislators. We have got seven votes from Congress MLAs.” According to TOI, “In the 126- member assembly, BJP and its allies were short of four votes needed to win both Rajya Sabha seats, while the opposition appeared to be comfortably placed to win the one seat it was contesting. From BJP Pabitra Margherita and UPPL’s Rwngra Narzary won the two seats from Assam, and Congress candidate, the sitting Rajya Sabha MP Ripun Bora, lost.
We won both the Rajya Sabha seats from Assam (one by the BJP and other by UPPL,our partner ) by a huge margin of 11 and 9 votes respectively @AmitShah @JPNadda @blsanthosh
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) March 31, 2022
Now the NDA “holds 13 of the 14 seats in the Upper House from the region” and one seat from Assam is held by an Independent, stated the news report. From Nagaland S Phangnon Konyak of BJP won uncontested, and is the first woman to be elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state. In Tripura BJP’s state president Manik Saha defeated the CPM’s Bhanu Lal Saha.
According to news reports counting of votes was delayed after “the Congress approached the Election Commission seeking to invalidate the votes of 5 NDA MLAs” who they accused of publicly revealing their ballot papers. This was rejected by the Election Commission. However, the Congress has reportedly suspended its two MLAs “after one of them voted for the ruling party candidate and another ‘deliberately’ marked his ballot paper in such a way that it got cancelled”. The party demanded action against its MLA Sashikanta Das who had been suspended in December. He had reportedly said he will vote for the ruling BJP-led coalition candidates in the Rajya Sabha polls “for the cause of development”. According to news reports, the Congress also sought action against “BPF legislator Durgadas Boro and three BJP MLAs – Hitendra Nath Goswami, Ganesh Limbu and Sanjay Kishan.”
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) has won two of the three seats in Kerala and Congress won the remaining seat. The Aam Aadmi Party has bagged all five seats from Punjab and BJP has won another seat from Himachal Pradesh taking its tally to five. According to a report in the Financial Express, A A Rahim of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and P Santhosh Kumar CPI Kannur district secretary were elected on behalf of the LDF, and Jebi Mather of the Congress was elected from the Opposition.
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