Will submit report on invalid vote in Rajya Sabha poll soon: Vivek Bansal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 15

The Congress is hoping to identify the party MLA whose vote during the June 10 Rajya Sabha poll was declared invalid because of which party nominee Ajay Maken lost to Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma.

Sources said that the party’s general secretary in charge of Haryana, Vivek Bansal, who was also the authorised agent during the election, has been asked to look into the sequence of events and submit a report on the MLA who cast the invalid vote.

“We are in the process. However, in view of the ED summons to our leader Rahul Gandhi and the party’s protest, we are yet to prepare the report,” Bansal said.

Sources said that the counting agent of the Congress knows the ballot number of that MLA who cast the invalid vote and action would be initiated against whoever is guilty.

The Congress had 31 MLAs in the House but needed 30 votes to win the Rajya Sabha seat from Haryana. Though Kuldeep Bishnoi was giving mixed signals about not voting for the Congress nominee, the party was assured about a win since it had the required 30 votes.

However, during counting, while it was clear that Bishnoi had cross-voted, one Congress vote was declared invalid since it had a tick mark in place of the ‘I’ mark. This invalid vote cost the Congress the RS seat from Haryana while Kartikeya Sharma, backed by the BJP and JJP, won the seat.

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