The election was a crucial one for the BJP-led NDA government, which is in minority in Rajya Sabha while the Congress looked to maintain hold and get Parliament entry for senior leaders.
On Saturday, in a major challenge to party leadership, 14 of the 17 Congress MLAs in Haryana facilitated surprise victory of media baron Subhash Chandra.
The verdict in Haryana is likely to hog controversy as the result was announced after 14 Congress legislators were deemed to have cast invalid ballots. Party president Sonia Gandhi had directed Congress MLAs on Friday to support Indian National Lok Dal-backed candidate R K Anand.
Anand, a controversial lawyer and Congress leader, was being sponsored by former MP and industrialist Navin Jindal and Kiran Chowdhary.
A powerful faction of the party consisting of former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Randeep Surjewala and Kuldeep Bishnoi had, however, counselled against tie-up with INLD and advised that Congress MLAs abstain from it. This was, however, over-ruled by the party high command.
Millennium Post, in its exclusive report on June 11, had talked about the brewing revolt in the party. Congress has also suffered setbacks in Jharkhand, where it had rushed senior party leader Ajay Maken to keep the flock together. Maken’s efforts went in vain as the BJP managed victory for its second candidate Mahesh Poddar.
In Uttarakhand, Chief Minister Harish Rawat though saved the day for Congress ensuring victory for close confidant Pradeep Tamta, who is a former Lok Sabha MP. Similarly, in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh personal efforts of Congress candidate senior lawyer Kapil Sibal saved the day for the party as at least three sitting MLAs voted against the party candidate.
Sources maintained that after setbacks in Chhattisgarh and Tripura, revolt in Haryana would throw the party in deeper turmoil.
The BJP made significant gains in the Rajya Sabha by winning 12 seats on Saturday, thus marginally narrowing the gap with the opposition Congress in the Upper House where the ruling party is in a minority. It was a clean sweep in Rajasthan for the BJP where all its four candidates, including Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and senior leader Om Prakash Mathur, were elected.
Harshvardhan Singh and Ramkumar Verma were the other two BJP winners.In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won two seats and the Congress one. The BJP winners were former journalist M J Akbar and Anil Madhav Dave. The Congress candidate was Vivek Tankha.
Union minister Birender Singh won comfortably in Haryana. In Karnataka, Union Minister for Industries and Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman won for the BJP while the ruling Congress got three seats. The Congress winners were its stalwarts Oscar Fernandes, Jairam Ramesh and K C Ramamurthy.
In Uttar Pradesh, all seven candidates of the ruling Samajwadi Party won easily. The winners included two Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidates while one seat each went to the BJP and the Congress.
The victorious candidates include Amar Singh, Beni Prasad Verma, Sanjay Seth, Reoti Raman Singh, Sukhram Yadav, Surender Nagar and Vishambhar Prasad Nishad of the SP. Satish Mishra and Ashok Siddhartha won for the BSP while Shiv Pratap Shukla won on the BJP ticket. Kapil Sibal was the sole
Congress winner.
Elections in the Rajya Sabha are held once every two years, with one-third of the seats going to the polls. The members are elected for six-year terms, with MLAs of every state electing their Rajya Sabha representatives.