In the biennial elections of the Rajya Sabha, three seats in the upper house from Karnataka were won by the ruling party – Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) with Congress bagging one and Janta Dal-Secular (JD-S) getting no seats.
In the result declared on Friday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Actor-turned-Politician Jaggesh and outgoing MLC Lehar Singh Siroya, all the three candidates of the BJP, won their upper house seats from Karnataka along with former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh from Congress.
There were in total six candidates in the fray for the Rajya Sabha elections. The BJP had fielded its candidate for three seats and two from Congress and one from JDS had contested the polls for four seats from Karnataka in the upper house of the parliament.
Other two candidates – Mansoor Ali Khan from Congress and Kupendra Reddy from JDS lost their elections after receiving 26 and 30 votes respectively.
Fearing the chances of cross-voting, all the three parties had issued a whip so that the respective MLAs vote the candidate/s from their party only. However, after the results the General Secretary of BJP, CT Ravi said that the candidates from BJP received support from other parties. “They got more votes than the allotted ones, people from the other party helped us (won the polls),” he said.
After getting re-elected to the upper house, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “I thank the blessings that BS Yediyurappa has always extended to me. I thank every MLA and through them, the people of Karnataka for having given me the second opportunity to serve them.”
Dedicating his win to the party and its members, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “This is not my victory. It is a victory for Team Congress. The entire Congress party, PCC chief DK Shivakumar, CLP leader Siddaramaiah, Chief Whips, all MLAs… it’s really a victory for teamwork. It’s Team Congress that has won.”
