Such drama: Congress ‘rebels’ used power of wrong pen

High drama marked the biennial elections to 27 Rajya Sabha seats. While a JMM MLA in Jharkhand was arrested ahead of the polls on Saturday morning, and votes of 14 Congress MLAs in Haryana were found to be invalid, cross-voting came to the fore in UP and Karnataka in a big way.

JMM MLA Chamra Linda was arrested in connection with a 2013 case in which he was allegedly involved in a scuffle. The arrest raised eyebrows as it enabled BJP-supported Independent candidate, Mahesh Poddar, to pull off a win.

Bizarre was the case of the 14 Congress MLAs in Haryana, said to be loyalists of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who apparently deliberately used their personal pens while voting instead of the one provided by the returning officer, thus rendering their votes invalid. This enabled Subhash Chandra, a media baron, to defeat Independent R.K. Anand, a senior lawyer and a former MP backed by the Congress.

In UP, five out of 29 Congress MLAs did not vote for party nominee Kapil Sibal, who pulled through with the support of four RLD MLAs.

In Karnataka, eight JD(S) MLAs voted against party candidate B.M. Farooq and for Congress-backed Indep-endent K.C. Ramamurthy.