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Who is at fault over Maken’s RS poll loss?

New Delhi: AICC general secretary and close aide of the Nehru-Gandhi family- Ajay Maken lost the Rajya Sabha election and with it any hopes of sitting in the hallowed Upper House of the Indian Parliament is also lost. BJP supported independent candidate Karthikeya Sharma defeated him by a very narrow margin in a close contest. Voting was held on Friday and after hours of drama, the results were declared at around 2.30 am. After settling various disputes, the counting of votes started at 1.30 pm. Congress leaders started celebrating as soon as the Election Commission ordered the counting of votes to begin. Because the election officer had rejected the demand of BJP to reject two votes of Congress, so, Congress leaders were confident that Maken got 30 out of 31 votes.

But when the results were announced, it was found that he got only 29 votes and the vote of a Congress MLA became invalid. Kuldeep Bishnoi, a Congress MLA, had already voted for the BJP on the basis of conscience. He followed the rules of Rajya Sabha voting and showed it to Congress's election incharge Vivek Bansal by voting for BJP. So his vote could not be cancelled. Despite this, the Congress was confident that it had garnered 30 votes. The surprising thing is that the Congress does not know about the one vote which has been canceled.

So, now there is a dispute as to whose fault led to Maken's Maken electoral loss. Leaders close to Bhupinder Singh Hooda say that all the fault lies with the Congress high command, while on the other hand, leaders close to the high command are claiming in the media that Hooda could not handle or could not arrange one or two extra votes. Those close to Hooda are claiming of two mistakes of the high command. The first is the fault of Vivek Bansal, the in-charge, who did not even know which MLA's vote was invalid. All the MLAs cast their vote by showing him their choice, but he could not understand which MLA did what mistake, due to which the vote may become invalid. The second mistake is that of Rahul Gandhi, who did not give time to meet Kuldeep Bishnoi.

On the other hand, leaders close to the high command and the antiHooda lobby says that the Congress lost because of overconfidence of Hooda fatherson as both did not arrange for a single additional vote. Even knowing that Bishnoi would cross vote, the duo did not try to persuade him. If Bishnoi was not being persuaded, an additional vote should have been arranged. In that scenario, independent Balraj Kundu could have been persuaded. Independent legislator Rakesh Daulatabad and INLD's Abhay Chautala voted for the BJP supported candidate. However, it is a matter of satisfaction for Hooda that he managed to keep 29 Congress MLAs united but the bad thing is that he could not pass in the very first examination.

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