BJP, RJD crack whip on errant MLAs

NEW DELHI: Cross-voting by MLAs belonging to various parties in Thursday’s Rajya Sabha polls has taken its toll, with BJP and RJD cracking their whip on the errant legislators.

The two main national players — Congress and BJP — and even regional outfits such as RJD were subjected to humiliation by their party MLAs in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Rajasthan. Even though the cross-voting failed to make any real dent in the prospects of these parties, except in Jharkhand, where the BJP candidate Ajay Maroo had to face electoral waterloo, and Orissa, where the third BJD candidate won comfortably, it made their leaders sit up and take notice of their MLAs defying party whips.

Taking serious view of violation of its whip, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari on Friday suspended three MLAs — Banwari Lal (Bihar), Bhimsen Chowdhary (Orissa) and Ramchandra Baitha (Jharkhand) — from the party for either cross-voting or staying away from the poll-process altogether.

RJD followed suit, and expelled two of its legislators from Bihar — Rajesh Kumar Singh and Pappu Yadav — for six years for voting for the ruling JD(U). ``The party has expelled two legislators for cross-voting in favour of JD(U) during the Rajya Sabha elections yesterday,’’ state RJD president Abdul Bari Siddiqui informed newspersons in Patna on Friday afternoon.

Having taken disciplinary action against its MLAs, BJP dared the Congress’ Rajasthan unit to disqualify 17 of its legislators for defying their party whip by voting for BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections.

Seeking to heap scorn on his party’s principal political opponent, BJP secretary Kirit Somaiya has written to the Election Commission seeking action against these MLAs for giving their second preference votes to BJP candidates, Mr Ram Jethmalani and Mr V P Singh. Mr Somaiya was the party’s observer for the Rajasthan elections.

In a letter to the EC’s special observer for Rajasthan, Mr K F Wilfred, Mr Somaiya said, ``We feel that these MLAs have violated the whip of their party. The motto/objective of the 2003 amendment to the Representation of People Act 1951 is to bring discipline, transparency and... against indiscipline and corrupt practices. Hence we want action.’’

Nine Congress MLAs had cast second preference votes for Mr Singh, and eight for Mr Jethmalani despite their party whip, Mr Somaiya said. Taking a dig at Congress, the BJP secretary wondered why was Congress not taking action against these 17 MLAs.

``Let Congress ask the EC and Speaker of Rajasthan Assembly to dismiss their assembly membership as MLA’’ Mr Somaiya demanded.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot, however, denied charges of cross-voting by his party MLAs. Speaking at a function in Jaipur earlier in the day, he asserted that the Congress party had not lost a single vote as both its candidates had got 51 first preference votes each out of a total strength of 102 of Congress in the assembly. ``Congress did extend the support to independent candidate Santosh Bagrodia and he secured 11 votes,’’ Mr Gehlot said. Congress was under pressure to punish three of its legislators in Orissa too.