With the Rajya Sabha elections expected to go down to wire, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday appointed senior leaders as observers for Rajasthan, Haryana and Maharashtra, for the June 10 polls. In the three States, five Congress candidates are in fray.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel along with Rajeev Shukla, who recently secured the Rajya Sabha berth from the State, were appointed as observers for Haryana, party treasurer Pawan Kumar Bansal and Chhattisgarh Health Minister T. S. Singh Deo have been picked for Rajasthan and leader of opposition in the Upper House Mallikarjun Kharge have been assigned the job to oversee Maharashtra election.
The election in Haryana and Rajasthan are particularly challenging for the party.
Congress General Secretary Ajay Maken is the candidate from Haryana where two seats are vacant. Based on the numerical strength of each party, the Congress and BJP are likely to get one seat each, but media baron Kartikeya Sharma, who is also in the fray, has made the contest tough for the party. BJP is backing Mr. Sharma who is contesting as an independent. He is the brother of Manu Sharma, the accused in the Jessica Lal murder case. Both his father, Venod Sharma, and father-in-law, Kuldeep Sharma, are considered close to former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Mr. Venod was a minister in the Congress government until 1999 in Haryana, and Mr. Kuldeep is a former Haryana Assembly Speaker.
The Congress needs 31 votes to win the seat and has as many MLAs. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on behalf of Mr. Sharma is banking on cross-voting. Meanwhile, Congress has shifted its MLAs in Haryana to a resort in Raipur in Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, hoping to sequester them from the influence of BJP.
For the four Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan, the Congress has fielded three candidates – Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari. The Congress with its 108 MLAs is set to win two seats. After winning the two seats, the party will have 26 surplus votes, 15 short of the required 41 to win the third seat. The party is banking on support of independents for the third seat. On the other hand, the BJP has 71 MLAs in the state assembly and is set to win one seat after which it will be left with 30 surplus votes. The BJP has fielded its former minister Ghanshyam Tiwari, and backed media baron Subhash Chandra as an independent for the second seat. Nearly 70 Congress MLAs are camping at a hotel in Udaipur ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, fearing horse-trading.
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena and the BJP will battle it out for the sixth seat of Rajya Sabha as none of the seven candidates in the fray – four of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and three of BJP – withdrew their nominations on Friday.
Of the 57 vacancies in the Rajya Sabha, 41 candidates in 11 states have so far been elected unopposed. The elections will be held for 16 seats in four states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana and Karnataka.
