Rajya Sabha polls: 8 elected, counting delayed in Maharashtra, Haryana

Bengaluru/Jaipur, June 10 (PTI): A total of eight candidates were elected to the Rajya Sabha on Friday from Karnataka and Rajasthan, while counting got delayed in Maharashtra and Haryana amid wrangling by rival parties over alleged breach of voting rules.

In an emphatic endorsement for the BJP in Karnataka, the ruling party had the last laugh as it won all the three Rajya Sabha seats it contested out of the four that went to polls.

The main opposition Congress managed to win only one of the two seats for which its nominees were in the fray, while the JD drew a blank.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh, and MLC Lehar Singh Siroya of the BJP, and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh of the Congress were declared victorious.

In Rajasthan, the ruling Congress won three of the four seats and the BJP one.

Congress candidates Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari were declared elected, and so was BJP’s Ghanshyam Tiwari.

However, the counting was held up in Maharashtra after opposition BJP alleged three MLAs of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)–Cabinet ministers Jitendra Awhad (NCP) and Yashomati Thakur (Congress), besides Shiv Sena legislator Suhas Kande violated the model code for voting.

The counting was also put on hold in Haryana for identical reasons after BJP nominee Krishan Lal Panwar and Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma shot off a missive to the EC, alleging Congress MLAs Kiran Choudhary and B B Batra showed their ballot papers to unauthorised persons after marking them and that the episodes were “duly captured” on cameras.