New Delhi: The BJP on Friday registered a major victory when the party managed to get all its nine candidates in the Rajya Sabha polls elected from Uttar Pradesh. In all the elections held for 25 seats on Friday, BJP won 12, Congress managed five, Trinamool gained four, Telangana Rashtra Samiti three and the Samajwadi Party one.
With wounds from losses in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha constituencies still fresh, BJP managed to secure a favourable result in UP on Friday with its candidate - Anil Agarwal - defeating a BSP nominee - Bhimrao Ambedkar - for the 10th seat in the Rajya Sabha biennial elections.
I want to thank PM Narendra Modi, Amit Shah & CM Yogi Adityanath. I feel elated that i could do what they expected from me. We all are really delighted with the results: Anil Agrawal, BJP's winning candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections. pic.twitter.com/EuAfoEHsKT
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 23, 2018
The other BJP winners were Arun Jaitley, Ashok Bajpai, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sakal Deep Rajbhar, Kanta Kardam, Anil Jain, G.V.L. Narasimha Rao and Harnath Singh Yadav. The votes of SP MLA Nitin Agarwal and Anil Singh of the BSP, who cross voted in favour of the BJP, were declared invalid.
Celebratory visuals from #Lucknow after all the 9 candidates of BJP won the Rajya Sabha elections. #RajyaSabhaElections pic.twitter.com/pA36lXAuCt
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 23, 2018
Samajwadi Party's Jaya Bachchan managed to get the remaining seat from UP.
(Also read: List of winners)
Other prominent outcomes:
The other major battle was in the Congress-ruled Karnataka where the ruling party won three seats and one went to the BJP. While the Congress was sure of two seats on its own, it wrested the third in a fight with Janata Dal-Secular that complained irregularities. B.M. Farooq of the JD-S lost to G.C. Chandrasekhar of the Congress in the state.
Others elected from Karnataka were I. Hanumanthaiah and Syed Naseer Hussain of the Congress and Rajeev Chandrashekar of the BJP.
West Bengal went on predicted lines as the ruling Trinamool Congress bagged four seats and while Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi backed by the Trinamool defeated CPI-M`s Rabin Deb.
The four Trinamool candidates are sitting Rajya Sabha member Nadimul Haque and first-time nominees Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Santanu Sen.
According to election officials, Trinamool`s Chakraborty secured the highest number of 54 votes. Haque and Biswas got 52 each and Sen 51. Singhvi garnered 47 votes. The votes of two Trinamool lawmakers - Jakir Hossain and Mrigendra Nath Maiti - were rejected.
Telangana
Telangana`s ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) bagged all three Rajya Sabha seats. B. Prakash, J. Santosh Kumar and AB. Lingaiah Yadav were declared victorious while Congress candidate and former union minister P. Balram Naik was defeated.
Chattisgarh
BJP candidate Saroj Pandey defeated Congress` Lekhram Sahu by a comfortable margin, getting also the votes two MLAs who cross voted in her favour. Pandey secured 51 votes while Sahu got only 36.
In the by-election held in Kerala, the Left Front-backed candidate M.P. Veerendra Kumar won by securing a huge margin against Congress candidate Babu Prasad. Kumar, who resigned from the Rajya Sabha after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar joined hands with the BJP, contested the seat after shifting from the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).
The 80-year-old former Union Minister and newspaper baron secured 89 votes as against 40 that Babu Prasad got.
Out of a total of 58 Rajya Sabha seats to be filled, 33 candidates from 10 states were already declared elected unopposed on March 15. Of the 33, the BJP won 17. These included seven union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar.
The Congress had won four, the Biju Janata Dal three, the RJD, JD-U and TDP two each and the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the YSR Congress one each.
In the elections held to 58 seats, the BJP won 29, the Congress nine, Trinamool four, TRS and BJD three each, JD-U, TDP and RJD two each and Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena, NCP and YSR Congress one each.
(With inputs from IANS)
