BJP wins RS seats in Maharashtra, Haryana and Karnataka
Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, former state minister Anil Bonde, and Dhananjay Mahadik were among the BJP candidates elected to the Upper House from four states.
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New Delhi, Jun 11: In the recently held Rajya Sabha elections, BJP won an extra seat from 3 states each, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Karnataka. Notably, in Maharashtra, all the major opposition parties were united against the BJP, and yet, BJP managed to win the seat, while being in the opposition.
Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, former state minister Anil Bonde, and Dhananjay Mahadik were among the BJP candidates elected to the Upper House from four states. The Congress managed to send Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh to the Rajya Sabha, but the grand old party's Ajay Maken, a former union minister, lost.
In Maharashtra, Shiv Sena's ubiquitous face Sanjay Raut, Praful Patel from the NCP, and Congress' Imran Pratapgarhi won the elections, while the main opposition BJP, won three of the six Rajya Sabha seats in the state. "We contested these elections not just for the sake of the contest, but to win it. Jai Maharashtra." tweeted BJP's Devendra Fadnavis, the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly. The Congress suffered a major setback in Haryana as BJP's Krishan Lal Panwar and the Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma backed by the BJP won the two seats for which elections were held. In neighboring Rajasthan, the Congress won three of the four Rajya Sabha seats, with cross-voting by BJP members. One seat has gone to the BJP. BJP-backed Independent nominee and media baron Subhash Chandra, whose entry had added spice to the electoral tussle, lost. In an emphatic endorsement for the BJP in Karnataka, the ruling party won all the three Rajya Sabha seats it contested, and the Congress won one. There was suspense over the outcome of the fourth seat that has led to a heated contest between the two major opposition parties -- Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular). However, BJP's Siroya triumphed over Mansoor Ali Khan of the Congress and D Kupendra Reddy (JDS). All the BJP candidates - Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh, and outgoing MLC Lehar Singh Siroya - were declared victorious by the poll officials after counting of votes. Former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh of Congress also won.
In Rajya Sabha, 57 seats across 15 states had fallen vacant. The maximum, 11, are in Uttar Pradesh. It is followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (6 each), Bihar (5), Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh (4 each), Madhya Pradesh and Odisha (3 each) Punjab, Jharkhand, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Telangana (2 each) and one seat from Uttarakhand. Forty-one candidates were elected unopposed.