With voting for Haryana’s two Rajya Sabha seats scheduled on Monday, the principal Opposition Congress has corralled its MLAs and moved them out of the state in an attempt to prevent cross-voting or defections. The party is said to be keen not to repeat “mistakes” that cost it crucial Upper House seats in recent years.
Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Assembly, Bhupinder Singh Hooda hosted a lunch for the Congress MLAs at his residence in Chandigarh Friday.
All 37 Congress legislators were asked to join this meeting, following which most of them left for Shimla in two buses and several private cars. Four of five Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha from the state – including Hooda’s son Deepender Hooda, Varun Chaudhary, Satpal Brahmchari and Jai Prakash – also attended the lunch, which was skipped by senior MP and Hooda rival, Kumari Selja.
Sources said the decision to take Congress MLAs to neighbouring Himachal Pradesh was taken by the party high command so that “they remain together there until the voting day”. While 31 MLAs (leaving aside Hooda) boarded the buses and cars to head to Shimla together, accompanied by state party president Rao Narender Singh and the AICC’s Haryana in-charge BK Hariprasad, five legislators did not join them, citing various reasons for “not being part of this training session”.
Panchkula MLA Chander Mohan, considered close to Selja, attended the lunch, but soon left the meeting. Ferozepur Jhirka MLA Maman Khan stepped out temporarily to offer Friday prayers before returning to the meeting. Punhana MLA Mohammad Ilyas—who has been unwell and recently hospitalised—also arrived at the venue with an assistant, briefly left, and then returned.
Badli MLA Kuldeep Vats attended the lunch but said he would not be able to travel to Himachal, citing a family wedding reception slated for March 15. Julana MLA Vinesh Phogat left the meeting in her car without speaking to reporters.
Narnaund MLA Jassi Petwar said, “Although both the BJP and Congress nominees have adequate numbers, the BJP has brought in a third candidate as Independent. The entire Congress party is united. We are going for our training session, because nearly 50 per cent of our MLAs are first-timers, and Rajya Sabha voting is quite technical. That’s why, the party feels that we should be given training so that there is no last minute mistakes.”
Thanesar MLA Ashok Arora sought to blame the media, saying “We also have friends in other political parties. But, these days, if any other party’s leader meets any of us, you will create a controversy that something is cooking ahead of the Rajya Sabha polling. The Congress is united and our nominee shall surely win.”
Hooda, Deepender and other senior Congress leaders told media persons that “the MLAs are together and Congress nominee will win”. “All 37 MLAs of Congress shall vote for the party’s nominee. I don’t know where they have gone. They have gone with their own will. I am here. They asked me that they wanted to go for an outing. I told them, please go ahead. They all will be back here on voting day on March 16th,” Hooda said.
Rao Narender, however, gave mixed signals. Soon after the lunch got over, he came out and told reporters: “Nobody is going anywhere. I am going to PCC office, while the MLAs are going to their respective flats. We are not taking the MLAs anywhere. There might be a city tour, but nothing more than that”.
However, minutes later, he boarded a bus along with several Congress MLAs, saying that the party high command was taking them out of the state for a “training session”.
They, however, did not disclose their destination. “We do not know the exact location. Our senior leaders are leading as per the instructions of the high command. We are following them wherever they will take us,” MLA Jassi Petwar claimed.
For the two Rajya Sabha seats, the ruling BJP has fielded ex-Karnal MP Sanjay Bhatia while the Congress has nominated Dalit leader Karamvir Baudh, a former state government employee. A third candidate Satish Nandal, who switched from the INLD to the BJP, has filed his nomination as an Independent candidate.
Past setbacks
The Congress leadership’s caution appears to stem from blows it suffered in the past Rajya Sabha elections in the state, where the party lost seats despite having enough legislators to clinch them.
The party faced one of these setbacks in the 2016 Rajya Sabha election, when its candidate R K Anand lost to the BJP-supported media baron Subhash Chandra due to its MLAs’ “cross-voting” and “invalid votes”.
In the 2022 Rajya Sabha election, Congress nominee Ajay Maken was widely expected to win but lost after cross-voting and a controversial invalid vote by a party MLA led to the victory of the BJP-backed Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma. This had again left the Congress leadership red-faced.
Poll math
Given the 90-member Haryana Assembly and two Upper House seats up for polls, any candidate needs at least 31 votes to secure a seat. On paper, the candidates put up by both the BJP and the Congress could smoothly sail through—the BJP with its 48 MLAs and Congress with 37—ensuring one seat for each party. The surplus votes (17 for BJP, six for Congress, plus three Independents and two INLD) add up to 28, just three short of the required figure. The INLD has yet to take a decision on the candidate whom it would back.