RS polls: CPI(M), Cong join hands to defeat TC candidate

New and not necessarily lasting alliances have been thrown up in the Rajya Sabha elections, voting for which ended today. As many as 56 new candidates from all over India were elected by electoral colleges comprising state assemblies.

The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will slip into a minority in the Upper House following this election.

In West Bengal, political rivals in the state "" the CPI(M) and Congress "" today joined hands to ensure the defeat of a Trinamool Congress candidate pitted against an Independent.

The CPI(M)-led Left Front MLAs cast votes along with their Congress counterparts in favour of a local Urdu daily editor, A S Malihabadi, sealing the chances of Trinamool Congress nominee and industrialist Dinesh Trivedi. Malihabadi secured the highest number of 58 first preference votes.

In all, four ruling Left Front nominees sailed through in the elections to five Rajya Sabha seats from the state. They include Shyamal Chakraborty, Tarini Roy and Prasanto Chatterjee, all of CPI(M), and Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas.

In Bihar, two Samajwadi Party MLAs deeply embarrassed the central party by first demanding to vote for the Janata Dal(U)-BJP candidates and then actually voting for them (it was not immediately clear whether the party had issued a whip at all). This embarrassment came even as the party was meeting for its annual conference in Jabalpur. The two MLAs had written to party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, informing him that they were ready to quit their seats if they were not allowed to vote for the NDA.

Janata Dal(U) candidates Shivanand Tiwari and N K Singh and BJP's C P Thakur won from the NDA, while a candidate from Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party (LJP), Sabir Ali, became the first LJP candidate to reach the Rajya Sabha. Union Minister for Company Affairs Premchand Gupta won from the RJD.

The NDA had 143 votes and needed 123 votes to win. But despite this it got 150 votes, mainly on account of Samajwadi Party members voting in NDA's favour.