Rajat Sharma, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of India TV.
In the world of politics, the leaders who had formed a front to defeat Narendra Modi faced several shocks one after the other on Tuesday. There was a rebellion in Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. Seven SP MLAs cross-voted and made the BJP candidate victorious. In Himachal Pradesh, 6 Congress MLAs openly cross-voted, BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan won the election, now Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu’s government is in danger. In Bihar, three MLAs from Congress and RJD left the party and joined BJP. In Maharashtra, a Congress leader left the party and joined BJP. In Gujarat too, a Congress leader changed sides. The opposition suffered many setbacks one after the other. The shocks are such that he is no longer able to respond.
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu was hit the hardest. There is a Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, 40 out of 68 MLAs are from Congress, BJP has only 25 MLAs. Even after this, BJP was successful in making its candidate Harsh Mahajan win in the Rajya Sabha elections. 6 Congress MLAs did cross voting. Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi and BJP’s Harsh Mahajan both got 34-34 votes, the match was tied, after which Harsh Mahajan was declared the winner through a draw and Abhishek Manu Singhvi accepted his defeat. This is a big defeat for Congress because Congress has 40 MLAs in the 68-seat assembly. Congress had the support of three independents. Even after this, Singhvi got only 34 votes while Mahajan got 9 more votes because six Congress MLAs cross-voted and three independents also voted in favor of Mahajan. It was known that there was going to be a game with Congress in Himachal the day Harsh Mahajan left Congress and joined BJP two weeks ago and BJP made him its Rajya Sabha candidate. Congress sat comfortably considering Singhvi’s victory as certain. Even when BJP fielded Harsh Mahajan in Rajya Sabha, the party leaders were not alert. There were reports that Harsh Mahajan has been brought to break the Congress but still the Congress leaders remained relaxed. The situation became such that MLA Abhishek Manu, who was the proposer in Singhvi’s nomination, also did not vote for Singhvi, instead he cross-voted. Harsh Mahajan has been close to former Congress CM late Virbhadra Singh. After the victory of Congress in the last elections, Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh was a contender for the post of Chief Minister. His son Vikramaditya Singh is a minister in the Sukhu government. It is believed that both of them are internally supporting Harsh Mahajan. That is why Harsh Mahajan’s victory in the Rajya Sabha elections is a threat to the Himachal government. If this happens then it will be a big problem for Congress.
Uttar Pradesh
BJP managed to make all its eight candidates win in the Rajya Sabha elections of Uttar Pradesh. Two candidates of Samajwadi Party won. SP’s third candidate Alok Ranjan lost to BJP’s Sanjay Seth by ten votes. SP needed only three votes to make the third candidate win, on the other hand, BJP needed nine votes to make the eighth candidate Sanjay Seth win. After this, BJP defeated the Samajwadi Party candidate by a margin of ten votes. This is a big problem for Akhilesh Yadav. On Tuesday, six rebel MLAs of Samajwadi Party along with Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak reached the Assembly to cast their votes. Everyone understood what was going to happen. Seven SP MLAs did not attend Akhilesh Yadav’s dinner meeting on Monday night and the same MLAs played the game on Tuesday. The biggest upset was done by Samajwadi Party Chief Whip Manoj Pandey. Manoj Pandey is MLA from Unchahar seat of Rae Bareli district. He first resigned from the post of Chief Whip, after which three SP MLAs Rakesh Pandey, Abhay Singh and Rakesh Pratap Singh reached the Assembly together and met the ministers directly instead of going to the SP office. Apart from these, Manoj Pandey, Pooja Pal, Ashutosh Maurya and Vinod Chaturvedi were also seen standing in line with BJP leaders to cast their votes. After this, the remaining hopes of the Samajwadi Party were shattered. By afternoon, Akhilesh Yadav also understood that there was a rebellion-like situation in his party.
Akhilesh Yadav wrote on social media, “Our third Rajya Sabha seat was actually a test to identify true comrades and to know who is with the PDA from the heart and who is against the backward, Dalits and minorities from the conscience. Now everything is clear. This is the victory of the third seat.” In the BJP camp, foolproof planning was done to defeat the third SP candidate and Akhilesh Yadav’s cycle got badly stuck in the Chakravyuh of Yogi Adityanath. Suresh Khanna, minister in the Yogi government, remained in constant touch with the SP MLAs but Akhilesh Yadav fell on deaf ears. After voting, Suresh Khanna said that the losers make allegations, so why not feel bad about it, but the MLAs have voted as per their conscience, there is nothing wrong in it. No leader in the Samajwadi Party had even dreamed that Manoj Pandey, who is the chief whip of the party, would change sides. Manoj Pandey has won the election thrice from Unchahar seat of Rae Bareli district. Unchahar assembly seat came into existence in 2012. Manoj Pandey has been winning elections continuously since then, he was a minister in Akhilesh government, so when Manoj Pandey sent his resignation, it was a big blow for Akhilesh. The impact of what happened in the Rajya Sabha elections will be visible till the Lok Sabha elections. This is a big blow for Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi before the Lok Sabha elections. This is a big victory for Yogi’s strategy. There has been a rebellion in the Samajwadi Party, but it may cause loss to the Samajwadi Party as well as the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections. Manoj Pandey is a big leader of Rae Bareli. In 2017, Samajwadi Party had won six out of seven seats falling within the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, but in the 2022 elections, BJP used its full strength. But even after this she could not defeat Manoj Pandey. Barring one seat, the remaining five seats were snatched from the Samajwadi Party. Now Manoj Pandey will also be with BJP. The buzz is that this time Rahul Gandhi can contest elections from Rae Bareli instead of Amethi and BJP can field Manoj Pandey against Rahul. If this happens then Congress may also lose Rae Bareli seat. Well, this is a matter of the future.
Karnataka
Cross voting took place in Karnataka also but it did not make any difference to the election results. Voting was held for four Rajya Sabha seats in Karnataka, Congress won three and BJP won one seat. Janata Dal-S candidate lost the election. There are a total of 224 seats in the assembly, each candidate needed 46 votes to win. Congress had fielded Ajay Maken, Nasir Hussain and GC Chandrashekhar, while BJP had made Narayan Bandage its candidate. All four won the elections. After making its candidate victorious, BJP had a surplus of votes of 20 MLAs. JDS and BJP together have 39 MLAs. Had seven more votes been obtained, JDS candidate Kupendra Reddy would have also won but no Congress MLA cross-voted. On the contrary, BJP’s ST Somashekhar voted in favor of Congress. Another MLA Shivram Hebbar did not come to cast his vote. In UP and Himachal, opposition leaders are accusing BJP of buying MLAs, but in Karnataka there is a Congress government. Two BJP MLAs committed irregularities. So should it be believed that Congress bought MLAs in Karnataka and put pressure on them? In the Rajya Sabha elections, votes are cast on the names of the candidates instead of the party’s election symbol. Therefore candidate selection and management play a big role. Akhilesh Yadav in UP and Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu in Himachal did not do good management, the party broke there. In Karnataka, DK Shivakumar’s management overpowered BJP and Congress won all the three candidates, but instead of learning lessons from victory and defeat, instead of introspecting, Congress leaders are blaming BJP. This will not improve the situation.
Bihar
In Bihar, RJD MLA Sangeeta Kumari and 2 Congress MLAs Murari Prasad Gautam and Siddharth Saurav joined the BJP camp. All three reached the Assembly along with Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary. Instead of sitting in the opposition, all three MLAs went to the seats of the ruling party. This is the second setback for the Grand Alliance. Even during the confidence motion of Nitish government on 12th February, three RJD MLAs had sided with the ruling party and today three more MLAs defected. Sangeeta Devi is RJD’s Dalit MLA from Mohania. He said that Dalits were not being respected in RJD. The buzz is that some more MLAs from Congress and RJD may join BJP in the next few days. There are a total of 19 Congress MLAs in Bihar and it is being claimed that 12 out of 19 MLAs may leave the Congress before the Lok Sabha elections. Some MLAs may join BJP during the budget session and some after that. The buzz is that BJP can make MLA Murari Gautam, who has left Congress, contest the Lok Sabha elections from Sasaram. Murari Gautam is currently the MLA from Chenari in Rohtas district. He has also been a minister in the grand alliance government.
Maharashtra
Apart from Bihar, Maharashtra state Congress working president Basavaraj Patil also left the party and joined BJP in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Patil has been a minister and is a prominent Lingayat leader in Marathwada. Earlier, former CM Ashok Chavan left Congress and joined BJP and Milind Deora left Congress and joined CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. Both also got elected to Rajya Sabha. Baba Siddiqui resigned from Congress and joined Ajit Pawar’s NCP.
Gujarat
Gujarat Congress Rajya Sabha MP and former Union Minister Naranbhai Rathwa also left Congress and joined BJP. Naranbhai Rathwa is a prominent leader of Chhota Udepur, Gujarat. At present, there is a dilemma on seat sharing in Bihar, Maharashtra and Gujarat. In Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal has also announced the names of the party’s candidates in Delhi and Haryana, but the Congress leaders are just watching the show silently because no decision can be taken without the permission of Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi is in England. Will return to India after giving two lectures at Cambridge University and after that will go on India Jodo Nyaya Yatra. Now Congress leaders say that what to do if they do? If so, to whom should I tell it? Therefore, those who are under compulsion, have no option, they are silently waiting for the time and those who are getting the opportunity, are going their separate ways. The problem facing Congress is that Rahul is not understanding the seriousness of the situation and the competition is with Narendra Modi. Congress has not yet finalized the talks on seat sharing and on the other hand Narendra Modi has started campaign in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. ,Rajat Sharma,
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