The ruling Congress in the state had everything to celebrate on Monday as it clinched two Rajya Sabha seats while the BJP, the single largest party in the Assembly, had to content itself with only one.The JD(S) ensured a comfortable win for its official candidate, M.A.M. Ramaswamy and coalition partner Congress’ B.K. Hariprasad. The BJP’s second candidate Shakunthala Hegde managed to get 37 votes, against the required 45. Hariprasad polled 48 votes, highest among the five candidates.The other winners are Union Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation Oscar Fernandes (Congress) and BJP chief Venkaiah Naidu. While Fernandes and Ramaswamy polled 46 votes each, Naidu was re-elected with 47 votes.In the 224-member House, the Congress has 65 seats, the BJP 79, JD(S) 58, JD(U) five besides 13 Independents. The Republican Party of India, CPI(M), Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Party and Kannada Nadu party have a member each. The BJP, along with its alliance partner JD(U), was in a comfortable position to ensure victory of one candidate but fell short of six votes to ensure victory of the second candidate. The Congress, however, had only 20 excess votes for the second candidate, falling short by 25 votes but coalition partner JD(S) added 13 votes while six independents became associate members of the Congress, taking the tally to 39. When voting took place on Monday, however, the JD(S) ensured 46 votes to its candidate, transferring 13 votes (including one independent) to Congress’ Hariprasad. Even Congress allocated only 19 votes to Hariprasad, ensuring 46 votes to Oscar Fernandes. Though the BJP tried its best to garner support from independent members, it failed. There were some anxious moments in the BJP camp when rumours spread that five JD(U) members refused to take the party whip and had decided to abstain from voting. This would have left the BJP red-faced as Shakunthala Hegde’s tally would have come down to just 32. Moments later, though, the five legislators voted for the BJP.
