New Delhi: Janata Dal-United’s Harivansh Narayan Singh was elected deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Thursday. The National Democratic Alliance candidate rode to victory on the back of 9 votes of the Rajya Sabha members representing the Biju Janata Dal. Singh polled 125 votes as against 105 for the Opposition candidate BK Hariprasad. Two members out of the total of 232 who were present in the House abstained from the vote.
The voting had to be carried out for the second time as some members pointed out mistakes in the first polling. Result displayed for the first voting was “122 ayes, 98 noes, 2 abstain. Total: 222”. However, the final vote count was 125 votes in favour of Harivansh, 105 for Hariprasad along with two abstentions from YSRCP.
Singh succeeds PJ Kurien to the position. The post of deputy chairman was lying vacant since Kurien’s retirement July 1. The newly elected Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman hails from Balia in Uttar Pradesh and holds an MA in economics and Diploma in Journalism from Banaras Hindu University. He preferred journalism to a cushy government job and rose up the ranks to become the Chief Editor of Hindi daily ‘Prabhat Khabar’. The 62-year-old, first-time MP had briefly worked as an adviser to the former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar but went back to journalism after that government fell.
He has authored and edited several books in Hindi, especially on Bihar and Jharkhand. Considered to be close to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Singh was a nominee of the party for the Upper House in 2014.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Singh on his election and said: “He has been blessed with the talent of writing.
He was also a favourite of former PM Chandra Shekhar ji.”
Leader of the House Arun Jaitley and Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad also led the felicitation. Jaitley, who is recuperating after a renal transplant, attended the house after a long gap.
The BJD declared their support for Singh late Wednesday. The party had during the recent No Confidence Motion moved by the Telugu Desam Party, too, kept its cards close to heart until the last moment. And the party legislators walked out when the motion came up for discussion in the Lok Sabha.
BJD spokesperson Sasmit Patra said the party decided to back Singh as his party and the JD(U) shared ideological common ground. “Our party has decided to support Singh since JD(U) and BJD have similiar ideological background. Both parties have emerged from the Jayaprakash Narayan movement against the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in mid 1970s,” Patra said.
The party has also expressed hope that Singh would give importance to regional parties as deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha.
Prasanna Acharya, Parliamentary Party leader of BJD in the Rajya Sabha, said: “I was delighted to know that Singh belongs to the same village as ‘Loknayak’ Jayaprakash Narayan. He was inspired the ideology of Jayaprakash ji. Many were inspired by Jayaprakash ji and I am one among them. When he sits at the centre of the House, we hope his attention will be on members sitting in the centre. Members of small parties have their seats in the rows towards the centre and many a time they are not given due attention. We hope smaller parties will get equal attention from the new deputy chairman.” Acharya thanked Opposition candidate BK Hariprashad for maintaining the tradition of the Parliament.
Meanwhile, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee Thursday accused Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of betraying people by backing the NDA candidate in a bid to stop the CBI from exposing ruling party’s “misdeeds”.
“BJD supporting the NDA candidate for #RajyaSabha Deputy Chairman election isn’t surprising at all, that’s what allies are supposed to do. It’s a deal to stop CBI from exposing the BJD’s misdeeds,” OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik alleged in a twitter post.
“The BJD has been betraying the people of Odisha for many years by making false claim about maintaining equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress. But, its real character has now come to fore,” Patnaik further said.
AAP stays away from voting
New Delhi: Rajya Sabha members of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stayed away from voting for the election of the deputy chairman of the Upper House Thursday and slammed the Congress as the “biggest” hurdle in the way of Opposition unity. AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said: “The Congress is the biggest hurdle to opposition unity. How will he (Congress chief Rahul Gandhi) ensure the victory of his candidate, if he cannot ask for votes.” The AAP had Wednesday said its MPs would vote for Hariprasad if Rahul asked party chief Arvind Kejriwal for it. AAP has three MPs in the Rajya Sabha from Delhi.
