Chandigarh: Fourteen of Congress' votes in Rajya Sabha elections in Haryana on Saturday were rejected apparently because the MLAs concerned registered their votes with a pen other than the one provided by the Returning Officer, INLD claimed.
However, Congress, which had backed Independent candidate RK Anand who lost the poll, questioned the claim saying how could the MLAs do this when they had to deposit their own pens and mobile phones while entering the Assembly Secretariat for voting.
"This is a wild allegation levelled by INLD," party leader Kuldeep Sharma said.
"The pen theory is an allegation being imposed by the INLD," said another party leader Karan Singh Dalal.
The BJP claimed that Congress's Randeep Surjewala showed his ballot to CLP leader Kiran Choudhry.
Leader of Opposition in Haryana Assembly and INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala blamed Congress for the defeat of INLD and Congress backed candidate Anand.
"Congress party's 14 votes were rejected because they registered their votes with another pen other than the one provided by the Returning Officer to record their votes in the voting compartment," Chautala claimed.
Anand was defeated by BJP-backed media baron and Independent candidate Subhash Chandra.
The Haryana Assembly has 90 members. Out of 90 votes, Singh got 40, Anand 21 and Chandra got 15 votes while 14 votes were rejected.
Therefore, in case of rejection of 14 votes, Singh needed 26 votes for his win and his 14 votes as second preference were transferred to Chandra, taking his total number of votes to 29, state Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said.
A senior Congress leader, who declined to be identified, however, claimed the incident to be a clear case of sabotage by MLAs owing allegiance to former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as one of the ballots was seen to be blank, while 12 others were marked by a wrong writing instrument.
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