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Rajya Sabha elections: drama & confusion in Jharkhand

The Rajya Sabha elections saw the victory of BJP. But in the state of Jharkhand, there was drama and confusion between the parties.

Sameer Oraon of BJP and Dhiraj Prasad Sahu of Congress on Friday won the two Rajya Sabha seats from Jharkhand, following drama and confusion that lasted nearly 15 hours.

Oraon sailed through comfortably with 27 votes while the BJP’s other nominee Pradeep Kumar Sonthalia lost the elections. Two votes were declared invalid by the Election officials. Thus, the winning figure was to be decided over 78 votes of the 80 polled, leading to the magic figure of 26.

For the second seat, Dhiraj Prasad Sahu polled 26 votes while Pradeep Sonthalia got 25 first preference votes. Adding Oraon’s extra votes to Sonthalia helped the latter reach the figure of 25.99, leaving him behind by .01 vote, said Ajay Sahu, convenor of the state BJP’s legal cell who was also the counting agent of one of the candidates.

READ ALSO: Rajya Sabha election results of 7 states: final list of winners

Overall, the NDA folder managed to get 52 first preference votes, indicating it got votes from four legislators of smaller parties, besides one from Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) MLA Prakash Ram.

JVM (P) leader Babulal Marandi wrote to election officials seeking cancellation of Ram’s vote for not showing it to the polling agent. When the Returning Officer rejected the application, the JVM (P) and Congress approached the Election Commission, delaying the counting process by nearly two hours.

However, before the official announcement was made, Sahu said he has to admit defeat with two of his votes getting canceled. As BJP supporters started shouting slogans, BJP MLA Radha Krishna Kishore told Sahu that the result was in his favor. However, the BJP filed another objection saying there “appeared to be an additional mark on the ballot paper”. The EC rejected the petition.

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