Election Commission receives complaint from BJP on Himachal Pradesh Congress’s whip for Rajya Sabha poll

In an attempt to force party MLAs to support the party candidate in tomorrow’s Rajya Sabha election, the BJP filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India (ECI) today.

The BJP has thrown former Congress leader Harsh Mahajan against Supreme Court lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the Congress candidate, in the race for the one open Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal. Following the conclusion of BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda’s tenure, the seat became vacant.

Declaring the whip’s issuance to be unethical and an effort to rig the election, Mahajan has asked the ECI to intervene by sending a show-cause notice to the Congress. In defiance of the ECI’s July 6, 2017, explanation, the Congress published a whip on February 22. According to the complaint, “the ECI has decided that no party can ask its MLAs to vote for a particular candidate by issuing a whip, as they do in legislative assemblies.”

Rajeev Shukla, the party’s chief organizer, will be present at the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) gathering this evening. Despite having a solid majority of 40 members in the 68-member House, the governing party is facing discomfiture due to reports that some unhappy party MLAs may cross-vote or abstain. There are three independent MLAs compared to the 25 MLAs in the BJP.

According to BJP candidate Mahajan, a member of parliament cannot have their vote deemed illegal under Section 59 of the Representation of People Act if they cast a ballot against the candidate of their party but presented their ballot to an allowed agent. He continued, saying, “The MLA who votes against his party’s candidate cannot be disqualified and will remain a member of the House.”

Senior Congress lawmakers, like as Rajinder Rana of Sujanpur and Sudhir Sharma of Dharamsala, are expected to vote against the party’s nominee, according to the BJP. The two MLAs, who were both formidable contenders for a cabinet position, have been vocally criticizing their own administration.

The BJP argued that the whip’s use would amount to undue influence as it may impair MLAs’ capacity for making decisions and alter the election’s result. Voters are free to exercise their right to vote or not in the Rajya Sabha election, in accordance with their own free will and preference. It is against the ECI standards and unlawful to issue whips. Additionally, the Congress candidate’s name appears on the whip, according to the BJP.

Harshwardhan Chauhan, the minister of Parliamentary Affairs, said in the interim: “We initially considered issuing a whip, but we dropped the move when we learned of the rules.” Just ten or twelve lawmakers have signed the letter that the BJP is claiming to be the whip.