Haryana: Congress smells a rat in '14 invalid votes' row

BANGALORE: Fuming upon the unexpected victory of media baron and BJP-backed Independent candidate Subhash Chandra in the Rajya Sabha polls, the Congress party has said rejection of 14 votes is a 'surprise'. "In Haryana the rejection of 14 Congress votes is a surprise, we doubt it is an act of someone from the state government," Congress leader Digvijay Singh said. "The results of Rajya Sabha polls are as per the numbers that we had and we have achieved success," he added. Subhash Chandra won in the polls after 14 votes of the Congress were declared invalid. BJP's first candidate, Union Minister Birender Singh, won the other seat in the state. Independent candidate R K Anand who had filed his nomination with support from INLD, and for whom Congress announced support Friday, lost. In the 90-member Assembly, BJP has 47 MLAs. The party required 31 votes to ensure Singh's victory. However, he needed only 26 votes when 14 votes were declared invalid. A total of 40 votes were polled in his favour. The additional 14 votes got transferred to Chandra with second preference votes increasing his tally to 29. He polled 15 votes. The Congress has 17 MLAs in the House while INLD has 19. With one INLD candidate cross-voting for Chandra, Anand polled 18 INLD votes but only three valid votes from the Congress. It is being alleged that 14 Congress MLAs took their own pens, and did not use the one provided by the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat, to cast their vote.