NEWS

Oscar Fernandes, Venkaiah elected to Rajya Sabha

Source:PTI
June 28, 2004 21:18 IST

Union Minister Oscar Fernandes and Bharatiya Janata Party chief M Venkaiah Naidu were among the ten candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha.

But Congress' Kiran Chaudhary and BJP's Shakuntala Hegde lost in a close contest on Monday in the biennial elections at the end of which Congress along with its allies will have over 110 members in the 245-member House.

After the current round of elections involving 65 vacancies, out of which 55 were elected unopposed, Congress will have 71 members in the House and the backing of a dozen Left MPs. The Left and other allies will account for about 40 MPs.

Opposition BJP and its allies will have around 70 seats. Other parties including Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and independents will account for about 40 seats.

Besides Naidu and Fernandes, others elected from Karnataka were B K Hariprasad of Congress and business tycoon M A M Ramaswamy (JD-S).

However, Shakuntala Hegde, wife of veteran Janata Dal leader Ramakrishna Hegde, lost to Hariprasad in the contest for the fourth seat.

In Haryana, Congress suffered a setback in the defeat of  its candidate Kiran Chaudhary who lost to an independent  candidate and National Minority Commission member Tarlochan Singh on a day when Supreme Court rejected voting right for  six disqualified MLAs supporting the party. The other candidate who won was Ajay Chautala of ruling INLD.

Pyarelal Khandelwal, former Union Minister S Thirunavukarasar and Laxminarayan Sharma (all BJP) won from
Madhya Pradesh, while the fourth candidate in the fray -- Congress leader Aziz Qureshi -- was defeated.

CPI(M) candidate and CITU general secretary Chittabrata Mazumdar won the lone Rajya Sabha seat in West Bengal.

Source: PTI
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