Rajya Sabha election 2024: Tuesday’s Rajya Sabha election was dominated by cross-voting with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dealing a blow to the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, but managing to get all its three candidates elected in Karnataka. In Uttar Pradesh, eight out of 10 BJP candidates won.
Himachal Pradesh Rajya Sabha Election 2024: MLAs who cross-voted
Vikramaditya Singh – Shimla Rural constituency
Son of six-time Himachal Pradesh chief minister Raja Virbhadra Singh, he won the Shimla Rural constituency in 2017, and won it again in the 2022 elections. In Chief Minister Sukhwinder Sukhu ministry, he held the PWD portfolio. He resigned as a minister on Wednesday morning saying that the “state government’s functioning, negligence towards MLA and not listening to them” forced him to take the decision.
Rajinder Rana – Sujanpur constituency
The BJP-turned-Congress leader had defeated BJP’s CM face Prem Kumar Dhumal from the Sujanpur seat in Hamirpur district. In the 2022 Assembly election, Rana won the seat defeating BJP’s Ranjeet Singh. Rana is leading all the MLAs who voted against the Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Sudhir Sharma – Dharamshala constituency
The four-term MLA won from Dharamshala seat in the 2022 Assembly election defeating BJP’s Rakesh Chaudhary. He had differences with CM Sukhu over the denial of land for the north campus of Central University of Himachal Pradesh in Dharamshala.
Chaitanya Sharma – Gagret constituency
Son of former Uttarakhand chief secretary Rakesh Sharma, he defeated BJP’s sitting MLA Rajesh Thakur this election. In 2020, he had won the Zilla Parishad polls as an Independent candidate and had joined the Congress ahead of the Vidhan Sabha polls.
Davinder Bhutto – Kutlehar constituency
A first-time MLA from Kutlehar constituency, he has been associated with the Congress for more than two decades.
Ravi Thakur – Lahaul and Spiti constituency
Son of late Congress MLA Lata Thakur, he became an MLA for the first time from Lahaul and Spiti in 2012 and won for the second time in 2022 by defeating BJP’s Ramlal Markandey. At the Vidhan Sabha, he had raised the issue of border demarcation of Lahaul and Spiti with Ladakh.
Indradutt Lakhanpal – Barsar constituency
Lakhanpal won as an MLA from Hamirpur constituency in 2012 and 2017. In 2022, he won from the Barsar constituency of Hamirpur district defeating the BJP.
Independent MLAs:
Hoshyar Singh – Dehra constituency
The Dehra MLA had joined the saffron party ahead of the 2022 Assembly election, however, he was denied a ticket. Singh supported the Sukhu ministry, without joining the party.
KL Thakur – Nalagarh constituency
After BJP denied him ticket, Thakur contested as an Independent in the Assembly election of 2022. Thakur had defeated Congress’s Hardeep Singh Bajwa from Nalagarh in Una district.
Ashish Sharma – Hamirpur constituency
Sharma contested as an Independent and defeated Congress’s Dr Pushpendra Verma in the 2022 elections. He had extended his support to the Sukhu government until Tuesday.
Karnataka Rajya Sabha election 2024
In Karnataka, the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) coalition faced a jolt as BJP MLA and former minister S T Somashekar voted in favour of the Congress candidates in the Rajya Sabha election on Tuesday. After Somashekhar’s cross-voting, BJP leaders led by Opposition R Ashok said that the BJP legislature party will write to the Speaker “disqualify” him.
Meanwhile, former minister and BJP MLA Shivaram Hebbar also abstained from voting.
Following the voting, Ajay Maken, Syed Nasir Hussain and G C Chandrashekar from the Congress and BJP leader Narayansa Bhandage got elected to the Rajya Sabha.
Rajya Sabha election 2024: Uttar Pradesh
Seven Samajwadi Party MLAs cross-voted in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday. All eight BJP candidates emerged victorious in election and the opposition Samajwadi Party suffered a jolt with one of its three nominees facing defeat due to cross-voting by some of its legislators.
Ahead of the voting, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party faced a major embarrassment from its chief whip and Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey, who resigned from the post, just minutes before election.
Samajwadi Party MLAs who cross-voted are:
Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey, Jabalpur MLA Rakesh Pandey, Kalpi MLA Vinod Chaturvedi, Gauriganj MLA Rakesh Pratap Singh, Goshaiganj MLA Abhay Singh, Chail MLA Puja Pal and Bisauli MLA Ashutosh Maurya.