RS polls: Victory for Kapil Sibal

Of the seats, Samajwadi Party won seven, the Bahujan Samaj Party won two, while the BJP and Congress won one each.

With votes from JD-S and independents, the ruling party’s third candidate (Ramamurthy) defeated Farook of the JD-S.

Sibal had returned to active law practice in 2014 after he lost in the Lok Sabha elections from Chandni Chowk constituency of Delhi.

Senior Advocates Arun Jaitley, Ram Jethmalani, KTS Tulsi, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and P Chidambaram are some prominent lawyers who are already serving as Rajya Sabha MPs. Congress’ Jairam Ramesh, Oscar Fernandes and KC Ramamurthy won seats from Karnataka with rebellion-hit JD (S), whose MLAs voted for the trio, defying their party’s diktat.

The BJP’s bid to spoil the Congress candidate’s chances by fielding party leader Vinod Gotia as an Independent candidate did not bear fruit.

“I thank all the 90 MLAs of Haryana”.

In Jharkhand, the BJP bagged both the Rajya Sabha seats following midnight arrest of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha legislator Chamra Linda and Congress legislator Devendra Singh, which reduced the opposition strength to 28.

“Congress touched a new low by supporting a candidate who had in the past criticised Indira Gandhi and other members of the Gandhi family”.

Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid termed Anand’s defeat by BJP-backed media baron and Independent candidate Subhash Chandra as a setback and disappointing and said it needs to be found out what really happened. “To defeat BJP supported candidate, it will be pertinent for us to support Anand”, said Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari on Friday.

Madhya Pradesh MLAs on Saturday voted for the three Rajya Sabha seats from the state for which there are four candidates.

Voting for the Rajya Sabha began at 9 a.m. While 30 of the 57 seats up for grabs had been decided beyond doubt, the remaining 27 saw heated battles between the Congress and BJP in a number of states.

But that did not help JMM chief Shibu Soren’s son Basant’s case as both the BJP candidates Naqvi and Mahesh Poddar won. Although SP managed to ensure victory of all its seven candidates, only three were through in the first round of counting, re-electing that the contest was close for the ruling party. Votes of 14 Congress legislators said to be loyalists of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda were declared invalid for not using the Election Commission-assigned pen.

Peace Party chief Mohammed Ayub, who has four MLAs, said that his party would vote in favour of Congress. Gotia got 50 votes – 48 surplus votes of BJP and two independents – against the 58 required for win. BSP supremo Mayawati had issued a whip to its four MLAs to vote for Tankha.

The keenest contest is happening in Uttar Pradesh where legislators and parliamentarians are voting to elect 11 members out of 12 contestants. The members are elected for six-year terms, with MLAs of every state electing their Rajya Sabha representatives.