BENGALURU: The Congress on Saturday denied that some of its MLAs voted for BJP candidate Lehar Singh Siroya in Friday's Rajya Sabha elections. A day after the polls, KPCC president DK Shivakumar said there's no truth in claims made by BJP national general secretary CT Ravi that two Congress MLAs and one JD(S) MLA voted for the BJP candidate. Ravi had made these claims after Siroya secured 36 votes against 32.
“I was not aware of additional votes secured by candidates of other parties,” he added. He said the party had issued a whip to all 69 MLAs and they voted for party candidates, former Union minister Jairam Ramesh, who was declared elected, and Mansoor Ali Khan, who had lost and secured the least number of votes (25) among all candidates. He said his party secured the votes of 71 MLAs in total, as independent MLA Sharat Bachhe Gowda and JD(S) MLA Srinivas Gowda voted for the Congress. In response to criticism that he had not reached an agreement with the JD(S), Shivakumar said: “Electoral gain and loss are two different things.”
