Congress wins 3 seats in Rajasthan, BJP-backed Subhash Chandra loses

New Delhi, Jun 10: The ruling Congress won three of the four Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan, defeating BJP-backed independent candidate Subhash Chandra.

Congress candidates Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik, and Pramod Tiwari were elected to the Rajya Sabha.

"Congress's victory on three Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan is a victory of democracy. I congratulate all the three newly elected MPs Shri Pramod Tiwari, Shri Mukul Wasnik, and Shri Randeep Surjewala. I am sure that all the three MPs will be able to strongly advocate the rights of Rajasthan in Delhi," Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot tweeted.

With this, the Congress' tally of Rajya Sabha MPs from Rajasthan will increase to six, out of a total of 10. The BJP will have four members.

Of the 200 votes, 199 were valid and one vote was rejected.

Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari got 43, 42 and 41 votes respectively while Ghanshyam Tiwari got 43 votes.

Chandra, a media baron, got 30 votes.

BJP MLA Shobharani Kushwah cross-voted in favour of Congress candidate Pramod Tiwari. The BJP suspended her from the party's primary membership soon after.

Gehlot also thanked BJP MLA Kushwah for cross-voting in favour of Congress candidate Tiwari. He said that she perhaps did not like the horse-trading attempts made by the BJP and therefore voted for the Congress.

"When everybody knows that 126 MLAs are with us, why did they field an independent candidate? They wanted to attempt horse-trading but that did not happen," Gehlot told reporters at the assembly building.

All 200 Rajasthan MLAs had cast their votes for the Rajya Sabha elections by Friday afternoon.

In the House, the Congress has 108 MLAs, BJP 71, Independents 13, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) three, and the CPI(M) and the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) two each.

Elections on four seats took place as the BJP's Omprakash Mathur, K J Alphons, Ramkumar Verma and Harshardhan Singh Dungarpur are going to complete their term on July 4.