ALLEGING HORSE-TRADING, CONG MOVES EC AGAINST CHANDRA, BJP

Jaipur: Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra and Deputy Chief Whip Mahendra Chaudhary on Wednesday wrote a letter to the Election Commission (EC) about suspected horse-trading in the State, ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls on 4 seats, scheduled to be held on June 10. They also demanded action against the BJP and RS independent candidate Subhash Chandra.

The Congress in the letter said, “Not a single independent has approved Subhash Chandra’s nomination form. All his 10 proposers are BJP MLAs so Chandra cannot win. BJP and Subhash Chandra are conspiring to win a Rajya Sabha seat forcibly via horse-trading using muscle and money power.”

In the letter, the Congress mentioned that it has 108 MLAs, and support of 13 Independents, BTP 2, CPM 2, and 1 of RLD, taking the total to 126. The BJP has 71 MLAs in the state and Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) led by Hanuman Beniwal has three MLAs. The party has 126 votes against 123 required to win three seats, while Chandra has 33 votes and he is short of eight MLAs to win.

Explaining the statistics, Choudhary said, “Considering the total number of MLAs supporting Congress, it is clear that the party can elect three Rajya Sabha MPs directly. The weightage of an MLA’s vote has been estimated at 100 in this Rajya Sabha election. It means a Rajya Sabha member will be elected on 4,001 weightage votes. This means that every elected Rajya Sabha member needs 40.1 (40.1X100 = 4001) votes of the MLAs. According to this, 41 MLAs can choose one Rajya Sabha member. Congress requires 123 votes to elect three MPs, while the Congress has the support of 126 MLAs,” he explained.

Congress nominated Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari for the Upper House of the parliament from Rajasthan. BJP has fielded Ghanshyam Tiwari for Rajya Sabha polls from Rajasthan.

The Congress leader demanded a criminal case and thorough investigation of horsetrading in order to conduct free, fair and corruption-free Rajya Sabha elections.