Picture : Twitter / ANI
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has slammed the BJP for the Rajya Poll win . Raut has accused Election Commission of siding with the opposition party, which he claimed “put pressure” on the poll panel.
Raut Termed The BJP win as mandate for horse trading . Talking to reporters in Mumbai, Raut who retained his seat, said ,”Some horses were up for sale at a higher price and shifted sides despite assurance of their votes to our candidate.”
Raut said the defeat of Shiv Sena’s second candidate Sanjay Pawar was not a setback.
“In fact, Pawar got 33 first preference votes, while BJP’s Dhananjay Mahadik got 27. But Mahadik scraped through on the basis of the second and third preference vote,” he said.
Earlier in the day, while talking to reporters soon after the results were declared, Raut had said that the BJP’s victory was not as huge as it was being made out to be.
The top leaders of his party had made a detailed plan for the Rajya Sabha polls to ensure a victory for Pawar, but some MLAs did not vote for them, he said.
he bitter contest that went to the wire saw three candidates of the BJP — Piyush Goyal, Anil Bonde and Mahadik — winning the polls.
The Sena (Raut), the NCP (Praful Patel) and the Congress (Imran Pratapgarhi) won one seat each.
Of the 284 valid votes, Goyal polled 48, Bonde 48, Mahadik 41.56, Raut 41, Pratapgarhi 44 and Patel 43.
Both BJP and the Shiv Sena approached the Election Commission, alleging breach of election rules and seeking disqualification of votes.
The poll panel directed the Rajya Sabha election returning officer of Maharashtra to reject the vote cast by Shiv Sena legislator Suhas Kande, after which the counting of votes got underway after 1 am.
“By putting pressure on the Election Commission in Delhi, our one vote (of MLA Kande) was disqualified. We had petitioned to make their votes invalid, but the Election Commission sided with them. What has happened in Maharashtra, Haryana and Rajasthan raises question marks on the (functioning of) Election Commission,” he said.
