Days after its Madhya Pradesh Rajya Sabha poll candidate Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination papers were rejected during scrutiny, the Congress has received another jolt, this time in Jharkhand.
On Thursday (June 18), its nominee, Pranav Jha, lost the biennial elections in the state due to cross-voting. Of the two Rajya Sabha seats for which polling was held, one went to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) candidate Baidyanath Ram, while the other was bagged by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-backed independent Parimal Nathwani, a former three-term Rajya Sabha MP and director of corporate affairs at Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.
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Jha polled only 20 votes, of which one was declared invalid during counting, despite the state’s ruling alliance of the JMM, Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation or CPI-MLL collectively having the required legislative strength of 56 MLAs to wrest both seats. For victory, a candidate required 28 first preference votes from the MLAs.
Nathwani, whose entry into the poll fray despite the Opposition coalition of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) lacking the requisite bench strength had forced an election, secured 30 votes. Of these, two votes were declared invalid during counting, bringing Nathwani’s votes down to 28; the exact figure required for a win.
The Congress-JMM bandage came off?
That Jha had fallen prey to machinations within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc was evident the moment counting for votes began. The JMM could have secured Ram’s victory with 28 first preference votes from among its 34 MLAs. The JMM nominee, however, ended up polling 30 votes when counting for the first seat concluded. This was a signal enough that Jha would fall short of the 28-vote mark, unless he received votes of the BJP and AJSU MLAs.
The Congress, by all indications, had taken Soren’s assurances about the prospective win of its candidate at face value despite the initial turbulence that had hit the ruling alliance when Jha’s candidature was first announced.
The Congress’s decision to field Jha for the second vacant seat without prior consultations with the JMM, RJD and CPI-MLL had irked Soren and other allies. Shortly after the Congress announced Jha’s candidature, the JMM had threatened to field its nominees for both seats. The Congress high command was forced to rush former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, senior leader from Haryana, Ajay Sharma, and the party’s Jharkhand in-charge K Raju to pacify a furious Soren.
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After keeping the Congress on edge for several days, Soren had finally relented and endorsed Jha as the joint candidate of the INDIA bloc. Thursday’s result, however, is expected to trigger fresh distrust among the INDIA bloc constituents as Jha’s defeat couldn’t have happened without a coordinated sabotage by the JMM, RJD and CPI-MLL, a senior Jharkhand Congress MLA told The Federalshortly after Nathwani was declared the winner.
Congress sources said while Ram could have won with 28 votes, Soren “deliberately” directed 30 of his party MLAs to vote for him, “knowing fully well that the alliance had exactly 28 first preference votes for each of our two candidates”. A senior JMM MLA, however, refuted the insinuation, claiming that Soren was “misled by some BJP MLAs who assured both him and the Congress about voting for Jha”.
In the run-up to Thursday’s poll, Soren had repeatedly hinted that his ruling alliance was expected to get a total of 61 votes. If this came to pass, it would have meant cross-voting by at least five MLAs from the rival NDA coalition.
The speculation of cross-voting from the NDA camp in Jha’s favour had also seen the rare image of the BJP herding its MLAs at Ranchi’s Radisson hotel in the run-up to voting day. Congress sources now claim this was a “mere smokescreen” to mislead the party about Jha’s victory prospects.
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What seems to have happened, though, was the exact opposite. Sources said while Nathwani secured votes of all 24 MLAs from the BJP (21), AJSU (1), Janata Dal-United or JD-U (1) and Lokjan Shakti Party – Ram Vilas or LJP-RV (1), he also got the support of Jairam Mahato, the lone Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha, as well as at least five votes of RJD, CPI-MLL and JMM legislators. While two of these votes were later declared invalid, it was not clear at the time of writing this report which MLAs these votes belonged to.
INDIA could see more trouble
With Jha polling only 20 votes against the assured support of 28 MLAs of the INDIA bloc, the result is expected to trigger a blame-game within the state’s ruling alliance at a time when the BJP-led NDA at the Centre is already on a mission to decapitate Opposition parties.
Whether the Congress high command plays down the setback and blames it squarely on alleged intimidation or offering of allurements by the BJP to the INDIA bloc MLAs or allows a war of words to escalate with its allies remains to be seen.
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