Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Feb 4: As this will be first open ballot election for Rajya Sabha in Jammu and Kashmir, the Returning Officer (RO) has called upon all four political parties and seven candidates, who were in race for four seats going to polls on February 7, to nominate their representatives to check the votes of party MLAs before being cast in the ballot boxes even as the political parties were in the process of issuing whip to their MLAs to cast vote in favour of the party candidates.
Official sources told the Excelsior that all four political parties-PDP, BJP, NC and Congress, which have fielded seven candidates for four seats of Rajya Sabha, were likely to issue a whip a day before the elections to their party MLAs, who comprised Electoral College for the elections, to cast vote in favour of the party candidates on February 7.
“The defiance of party whip, which can be reported by representatives of the candidates or political parties appointed by them for checking votes of the MLAs, would lead to disqualification of the MLA from the Assembly as per the Anti-Defection Law of Jammu and Kashmir,” sources said.
They pointed out that the Leader of Legislature Party was generally authorized to issue whip to the party MLAs for voting in favour of the party or alliance candidates. However, since all four parties have not elected Leaders of their Legislature Parties, their State presidents would be authorized to issue the whip to party MLAs for voting. It may be mentioned here that all four major political parties-PDP, BJP, NC and Congress have so far not elected the Leaders of their Legislature Parties even after about one and half months of declaration of Assembly election results.
Returning Officer for Rajya Sabha elections, Mohammad Ramzan has asked all seven candidates, who were in the fray for four seats, to designate their representatives to serve as Election Agents, to check the votes of MLAs as this will be an open ballot election. The last Lok Sabha elections in January 2009 was held through secret ballot in which BJP state president and Lok Sabha member, Jugal Kishore Sharma, then a MLA, had cross voted in favour of NC leader Dr Farooq Abdullah while a National Panthers Party (NPP) MLA had also voted for the alliance candidate.
Later, in March 2011 Legislative Council elections, seven BJP MLAs including then Legislature Party leader Prof Chaman Lal Gupta had cross voted in favour of National Conference-Congress candidates and were expelled by the party. Later, they were taken back but denied re-nomination in the Assembly elections.
After the cross-voting, the then Government had introduced and passed legislation in the House for open ballot system for both Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections, which had already been implemented in other States.
Sources said in determined bid to capture all four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir, the PDP could shift its two votes to the BJP in Notification No. 3 on which election is being held for two seats, if required, as some of the Independents would be voting for the PDP and not the BJP.
Sources said the BJP and PDP would be casting votes in favour of candidates of each other for Notification No. 1 and 2 to make their candidates victorious. For Notification No. 1, the PDP and BJP MLAs would cast their all 53 votes (PDP 28 and BJP 25) to make PDP candidate Mir Mohammad Fayaz victorious while for Notification No. 2, they would vote jointly to ensure victory of BJP nominee Shamsher Singh Manhas.
Sources said the BJP could get even more votes as two MLAs of Sajjad Lone’s People’s Conference and some Independent candidates were sure to vote for the combine. This will lead to defeat of NC candidates Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo and Nasir Aslam Wani, who will poll 27 or 28 votes.
However, the most crucial battle will be fought on Notification No. 3, where the PDP would be required to shift at least its two votes to BJP candidate Chander Mohan Sharma to ensure his victory. Sources said Sharma would be polled 27 votes (25 of BJP and two of People’s Conference) and would require two additional votes to ensure his victory.
The PDP has 28 MLAs of its own and has confirmed support of two Independent candidates while one of the two other Independents was likely to vote for the PDP. While the Independents would vote for BJP, the PDP would divert its two votes to the BJP candidate to either make it 30-29 or 29-29 in favour of PDP-BJP candidates Nazir Ahmad Laway and Chander Mohan Sharma to ensure their victory.
On the other, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and NC-Congress joint candidate has confirmed support of 28 MLAs only including 15 of NC, 12 from Congress and one from CPM. The PDP-BJP calculations will be upset only if two vulnerable Independent candidates opted to vote for Azad, sources said.
One of the former Law Minister in the PDP-Congress coalition Government would guide the PDP-BJP MLAs on the voting pattern a day before the elections to ensure that no vote is wasted as even a single vote could be crucial for victory of the PDP-BJP candidates, sources said.
Meanwhile, Returning Officer for the Rajya Sabha elections, Mohammad Ramzan today issued a notification inviting all 87 newly elected MLAs to cast their vote in the Legislative Assembly Secretariat lobby from 9 am to 4 pm on February 7. Counting of votes will be taken up on the same day at 5 pm and results declared by about 7 pm.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel