Patna: Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal-United yesterday won both the seats in the Rajya Sabha from the state in a by-election, thanks to cross-voting by its rebel legislators. The Janata Dal-United candidates Pavan Verma and Ghulam Rasool Balyavi were elected despite the rebel legislators and with full backing of opposition Bharatiya Janata Party to the two Independent candidates - Sabir Ali and Anil Sharma. Balyavi got 123 votes and Verma 122, while Ali got 107 votes and Sharma 108. A total of 230 of the 232 sitting legislators in the 243-member house cast their votes. According to JD-U leaders, 18 to 20 of the party’s rebel legislators voted for Ali and Sharma. The JD-U’s victory in the Rajya Sabha by-election is seen here as a big relief for top party leaders, including former chief minister Nitish Kumar. After JD-U candidates won the elections, hundreds of party workers celeberated by distributing sweets and by bursting firecrackers here. The 243-seat house has a current strength of 233 members. The JD-U has 117 legislators and is supported by a Communist Party of India legislator, two Independents, four Congress members and 21 RJD legislators. The BJP has 84 members and enjoys the support of three Independent legislators. The by-polls were necessitated by the election of Lok Janshakti (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan, BJP general secretary Rajiv Pratap Rudy and former RJD general secretary Ram Kripal Yadav to the Lok Sabha.
Yashwant Sinha walks out of jail
Ranchi: Senior BJP leader and former union minister Yashwant Sinha walked out of a Jharkhand jail yesterday, a day after he was granted bail. More than 55 party workers who were in jail with him since June 3 also walked free after they were released from the Hazaribagh central jail. Sinha was accorded a warm welcome by BJP workers. BJP leader L K Advani met Sinha in jail on Tuesday and did not rule out the possibility of a larger role for him in the state. Advani had also appealed to him to seek bail and lead the agitation in the state. Sinha was arrested on June 2 while he was leading a demonstration against the state’s poor power scenario and had locked up officials of the electricity board. He was presented before the court on June 3 where he refused to seek bail and was sent to judicial custody. On Monday, Sinha’s judicial custody was extended till June 28.
Chandy most ‘liked’ Cong leader on FB
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, with over half-a-million “likes” on his Facebook page, is now the most “liked” Congress leader on the social media platform pushing former India prime minister Manmohan Singh to second place. A statement issued here yesterday by Chandy’s office said that with his likes now touching 501,500 he has entered the list of the top 20 politicians in the country, that includes four other chief ministers. Singh has a total of 463,011 likes, while Rahul Gandhi has 360,454 and former union minister and Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor has 235,343. Forty percent of those who have “liked” Chandy are from outside the country, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has just seven percent ‘likes’ from abroad.
IANS
