Rajya Sabha Polls: Fear poaching, Haryana Congress MLAs leave for Chandigarh from Delhi

Haryana Congress MLAs left the national capital for Chandigarh where voting is taking place for the Rajya Sabha elections on Friday. They reached Delhi from Chhattisgarh’s Raipur on Thursday, where they were staying at a resort in a bid to avoid poaching.

Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda, who is also travelling along with the MLAs, said that party candidate Ajay Maken will win the Rajya Sabha elections.

Also read: Rajya Sabha polls: Voting for 16 seats across four states to be held on June 10

“We are confident that our candidate Ajay Maken will win with more votes than our strength,” Hooda said.

Meanwhile, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) MLA Abhay Singh Chautala said he will vote for Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma.

“My vote is not going to BJP or JJP but to (ex-Congress leader Venod Sharma’s son) Kartikeya Sharma because of our family connections. He is an independent candidate, I would not have supported him if he was a candidate of any party,” he said.

Also read: Why Nawab Malik, Anil Deshmukh won’t be able to vote in Rajya Sabha election

In Haryana, the need for polls arises as three candidates have filed nominations for two Rajya Sabha seats. The Congress party has nominated senior leader Ajay Maken while the BJP has fielded former minister Krishan Lal Panwar.

Both the BJP-JJP alliance and Congress legislators were shifted to resorts to slash possibilities of poaching. While the BJP-JJP alliance had lodged their MLAs in a resort in Chandigarh, the Congress leaders were moved to a resort in Delhi.

Also read: Why is Rajya Sabha a ‘permanent house’

The polling to elect the members of the Upper House of the Parliament on 16 Rajya Sabha seats spread across four states will be held today amid speculations of horse-trading and fears of cross-voting. Polling began at 9 am and will conclude at 4 pm.

Notably, on Friday, all 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.