Karnataka Rajya Sabha polls: Congress wins 3 seats, NDA gets one

The ruling Congress in Karnataka won three seats and the BJP one in the Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka on Tuesday, 27 February.

Those who were elected to the Upper House are Ajay Maken, G.C. Chandrasekhar and Syed Naseer Hussain, all belonging to the Congress, and Narayana K. Bhandage of the BJP.

Five candidates were in the fray for the four seats in the elections, including JD(S) contestant D. Kupendra Reddy.

The elections were marred by cross-voting. While one of the BJP MLAs, S.T. Somashekar, voted for the Congress's Maken; the other, A. Shivaram Hebbar, abstained.

Deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar said that the BJP and JD(S) were asking for votes of conscience from the Congress. “But, they (BJP leaders) themselves have given the votes of conscience to the Congress,” the deputy CM said.

He said that BJP could have transferred the additional votes to JD(S) after ensuring 45 votes for their candidate. “The BJP and JD(S) together had fielded the NDA candidate. The BJP got 48 votes but then they abandoned the JD(S) candidate,” Shivakumar said.

On cross-voting, he said: “I do not know about cross-voting. I have only seen my ballot paper. I have not even seen the ballot papers of independent MLAs. If this is the case how can I know about the cross voting? You can ask BJP leaders, they were talking about votes of conscience.”

With IANS and PTI inputs