The BJP has won most of the 15 Rajya Sabha seats for which polls were conducted on Tuesday, with several MLAs cross-voting and pushing the opposition further to the brink ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.The saffron party surprisingly won the single seat on offer in Himachal Pradesh, shocking the Congress, which has a significant majority of 40 MLAs against the BJP’s 25 in the 68-member Assembly. At least six Congress MLAs and three Independents are believed to have voted in favor of the BJP, ensuring the big win. Similarly, the BJP won eight out of ten seats in UP, again through cross-voting from Samajwadi Party MLAs, thereby causing havoc in the state’s opposition with the SP’s chief whip Manoj Pandey quitting amid the polls. The situation was different in Karnataka, where BJP MLA S T Somashekar voted in favor of Congress candidate Ajay Maken while another MLA of the saffron party, A Shivaram Hebbar, abstained from voting. However, Maken did not need Somashekar’s vote, and would have qualified for the seat without the BJP MLA’s support.Somashekar said he listened to the “voice of his conscience” and voted in favor of the Congress “which built schools and carried out developmental works in his constituency”, reported The Economic Times. The Congress won three out of four seats in Karnataka, with BJP’s Narayansa K Bhandage being the exception. The upper house of the Indian parliament will have a total of 240 seats after the newly elected members are sworn in. Of these, six members are nominated by the President. The remaining 234 seats are filled at the rate of one-third every two years, giving each member a six-year tenure.
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