Rajya Sabha Polls: Congress wins 3 seats in Karnataka, Trinamool gets 4 in West Bengal

NEW DELHI: In the Rajya Sabha elections on Friday, Congress won 3 Rajya Sabha seats in Karnataka and one in West Bengal. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the other hand got one seat in Karnataka and another one in Chhattisgarh.nnIn Telangana, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) won three seats while the Trinamool Congress won four seats in West Bengal.nnKarnatakannThe ruling Congress in Karnataka bagged three Rajya Sabha seats and BJP one in the biennial election. Congress? Dr L. Hanumanthaiah, Dr Syed Naseer Hussain and G.C. Chandrasekhar, as also BJP?s Rajeev Chandrashekar, were declared elected by the returning officer.nnChhattisgarhnnBJP national general secretary Saroj Pandey won the lone Rajya Sabha seat for which polling was held in Chhattisgarh, defeating Congress rival Lekhram Sahu.nnPandey polled 51 votes, while Sahu secured 36 votes in the election held at the state assembly complex, wherein 87 of the 90 state legislators cast their votes, state Assembly secretary Chandra Shekhar Gangrade, who is also the returning officer, told PTI.nnThe House currently has 49 BJP MLAs, 39 Congress legislators, one BSP member and an independent legislator. Pandey seems to have got all 49 votes of her party MLAs and apparently two more votes from BSP and independent legislators. Sahu bagged 36 votes as the three Congress legislators – Amit Jogi, Shiyaram Kaushik and Rajendra Rai – who are facing disciplinary action for anti-party activities, boycotted the polls and did not vote. While Jogi was expelled from the Congress in 2016, Kaushik and Rai were suspended from the party last year. According to officials, Jogi, Kaushik and Rai are still considered Congress members in the state assembly. However, an expelled member was not bound by the party whip, they said.nnWest BengalnnCongress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and four Trinamool Congress nominees were elected to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal, returning officer Jayanta Koley announced. TMC supported Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha poll who contested as the fifth candidate as the Congress did not have the strength in the Assembly to get its candidate elected.nnSinghvi secured 47 votes, he said. The four TMC candidates who won the RS election are Nadimul Haque, Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Santunu Sen, he said. Nadimul Haque secured 52 votes, Subhasish Chakraborty got 54 votes, Abir Biswas bagged 52 and Santunu Sen secured 51 votes, Koley said.nnLeft Front-backed CPI(M) candidate Rabin Deb lost the poll. He had contested for the fifth seat bagged only 30 votes. It will be the second term for Nadimul Haque in the upper house. A candidate required 49 votes to win a RS seat from the state.nnThe Congress has 42 MLAs in the house. Of the 294 MLAs of the assembly, 288 had cast their votes. Two votes were declared invalid. Altogether six candidates including Singhvi were in the fray for five RS seats from the state. Election to the five Rajya Sabha seats from the state was necessitated as the terms of Kunal Ghosh, Bibek Gupta and Nadimul Haque of the TMC and Tapan Sen of the CPI(M) will end on 2 April. Mukul Roy, who quit the TMC and joined the BJP last year, has already resigned from the Rajya Sabha.nnTelanganannTelangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidates B. Prakash, B. Lingaiah Yadav and J. Santosh Kumar have been elected to Rajya Sabha from Telangana.