BENGALURU: Since none of the three parties has an adequate number of votes to win the fourth Rajya Sabha seat from the state assembly, concern is mounting that moneybags would take advantage of the situation. The election is scheduled for June 10 and aspirants across the three parties are lobbying hard for the ticket.
A candidate needs 46 votes from the 224-member assembly to win and the BJP, with 122 MLAs, can win two of the four seats. Congress, with 69 MLAs, can win one. The fourth seat appears fair game and all three parties are attempting to get ahead of the other in trying to secure the seat. However, JD (S), which with its 32 MLAs on record cannot win on its own, holds the bargaining chip.
“In a similar situation in the past, money bags who had no stake in the state politics, took advantage of the situation and entered the Rajya Sabha,” said BL Shankar, state Congress vice-president and former chairman of the legislative council. “There is a very strong possibility of candidates trying to lure MLAs through money power. Those who want to retain the sanctity of the upper house of Parliament are concerned. ”
Shankar was referring to businessman Vijay Mallya, who was elected twice to the Rajya Sabha from the Karnataka assembly as an independent candidate. Mallya was elected for the first time in 2002 with the support of MLAs from JD(S) and Congress, and then again in 2010 where votes of JD(S) and BJP legislators saw him through.
On other occasions in the past, candidates had allegedly offered cash and expensive gifts such as SUVs to legislators in return for votes. None of this was obviously independently verifiable, but this time the buzz is that aspiring candidates are again willing to spend staggering sums – allegedly up to Rs 50 crore – for the seat.
Cash is also likely to play a role in the four seats to the legislative council elections from the teachers’ and graduates’ constituencies slated for June 13. During the council polls from local bodies in December last year, some candidates allegedly splurged as much as Rs 20 crore and even seasoned politicians were aghast.
“One way to curb this menace is to cap election ex- penditure of candidates on the lines of Lok Sabha and assembly polls,” said TA Tippeswamy, JD(S) MLC. “The Election Commission should make it mandatory for candidates to disclose their expenses. ”
Concurring with Thippeswamy, N Ravikumar, BJP state general secretary and MLC, said a possible solution to the problem is to field a consensus candidate for the fourth Rajya Sabha seat so that all four candidates are declared winners without the need of a ballot.
“The BJP ensured this when HD Deve Gowda was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2020,” Ravikumar said. “We chose not to put up a candidate against him [Congress too did not field a candidate]. It is now the turn of JD(S) to return the favour. In this way, we can avoid money flowing into the elections. ”
At a legislature party meeting in Bengaluru on Wednesday, top JD(S) functionaries authorised party supremo HD Deve Gowda to take the final call on candidates. On Tuesday, HD Kumaraswamy, JD(S) floor leader and former chief minister, had suggested that his party will field a Rajya Sabha candidate to ensure the party stays “independent”.
