Bengaluru: With six candidates filing their nomination papers for four seats to the Rajya Sabha (RS) from the State, the three main political parties are working out their gameplans to ensure the success of their candidates in the polls to take place on June 10.
With their numerical strength in the State Assembly, the ruling BJP can win two seats and the Congress one seat comfortably with first preference votes.
The BJP has fielded Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and actor Jaggesh, while the Congress has fielded former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh.
The JD(S), which does not have the numbers to win a seat on its own, has fielded former MP Kupendra Reddy, with the hope that it can get additional votes of the Congress.
The BJP too has fielded Lehar Singh Siroya and Congress has fielded Mansoor Ali Khan with an eye on bagging the fourth seat.
With no party in a position of their own to win the fourth seat, all the three parties are placing their bets on cross voting, which may help them in sailing through.
In order to get the additional votes of their rival political parties, the candidates for the fourth seat of all the three parties are said to have resorted to horse-trading that could trigger cross-voting in the June 10 polls.
With each candidate required to get 46 first preferential votes, the ruling BJP can win two seats comfortably, while the Congress with 70 MLAs, can easily win one seat.
The question here is which way the additional votes of these two parties will go and the answer will be known only when the results will be out on June 10.
This post was published on June 1, 2022 6:38 pm