Voted for RK Anand in RS polls, 12 Haryana Congress MLAs say in affidavits

NEW DELHI: The AICC has procured for submission before Election Commission the signed affidavits of 12 Congress MLAs of Haryana — whose votes were declared invalid in the recent Rajya Sabha poll on the ground that they used “an unauthorised pen” to cast their votes — stating they had voted for Congress/INLD-backed Independent candidate RK Anand.
Significantly, the party high command has chosen to tactically 'exempt' senior leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Randeep Singh Surjewala from this leadership-dictated 'loyalty-declaring drill' to MLAs, sources said.

AICC sources said a Congress delegation will submit copy of its 12 MLAs' affidavits before the chief electoral officer of Haryana in Chandigarh on Saturday as part of a legal battle between defeated candidate Anand and winner Subhash Chandra.

Alongside, similar affidavits of 18 MLAs of INLD too will be submitted by Anand. The same will be submitted before EC later. The exercise was meant to show Anand had "more MLA voting for him" than the 15 votes polled by winner Chandra. Of the 17 Congress MLAs, 14 votes were declared invalid in RS polls. The leadership has chosen to "exempt" five MLAs from the affidavit--submission exercise on three separate grounds. Three MLAs — Kiran Chowdhary, Kuldeep Bishnoi and Renuka Bishnoi — were not asked for affidavits as their votes for Anand were declared valid.

In exempting Surjewala, the reasoning is that his vote was declared invalid on 'technical mistake' even before the 'introduction of pen-changing conspiracy'. In the case of Hooda, interestingly, a source said, "Since it is already known Hoodaji has left the ballot blank, there was no need to ask for his affidavit."

Incidentally, party circles were also debating what the leadership could have done, if Hooda refuses to submit himself to the drill. When contacted for his comment, Haryana PCC chief Ashok Tanwar said: "Whichever Congress MLAs of Haryana have been asked by the leadership to submit their affidavits have already done so."

Since Haryana Congress MLAs were opposed to Anand because he was supported by rival Chautala's INLD, Hooda left the ballot paper blank and Surjewala's vote was declared invalid on 'technical ground'. But Surjewala 'by mistake' showed the marked ballot to Congress legislature party leader before depositing it in the ballot box.