RS polls: Voting ends amid allegations of horse-trading

Amid the allegations of horse-trading, the voting has ended for Rajya Sabha polls for16 seats across four states on Friday. Among the candidates whose electoral fate will be decided in these elections are Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Congress's Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh and Mukul Wasnik and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut. Bienniel elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently. Out of this, 41 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were declared elected unopposed on June 4. Elections for 16 seats were necessiated as the number of candidates exceeds the seats going to the polls.

Meanwhile, in Karnataka, at least one legislator from Janata Dal (Secular), Srinivas Gowda, voted for the Congress in the Rajya Sabha polls held for four seats. Janata Dal (Secular) chief HD Kumaraswamy now called the party the B team of the BJP after one of his MLAs cross voted for the Congress. "I had said that Srinivasa Gowda would vote for the Congress. SR Srinivas also didn't vote for JD(S). Congress has shown its true face today. Congress is the 'B' team of the BJP. They're the main culprit for the rise of the BJP in the country," he said. Kumaraswamy alleged that the Congress leader was “pressurising” JD(S) MLAs not to vote for their own party. Six candidates are in the fray for the Rajya Sabha election for four seats from Karnataka, necessitating a heated contest for the fourth seat. Despite not having the adequate number of votes to win the fourth seat from the state Assembly, all three political parties in the state the BJP, Congress and JD(S) -- have fielded candidates for the seat, forcing an election.