Amid allegations that the ruling Congress alliance in Assam is indulging in horse trading to capture all the three Rajya Sabha seats, the Asom Gana Parishad has sent a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI) seeking to conduct the election to the Upper House under its direct supervision on February 7.
AGP president and former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta has written to the ECI for direct its supervision of forthcoming Rajya Sabha elections from Assam to ensure free and fair polls.
The AGP has been alleging probable horse trading by the ruling Congress alliance in the State to ensure that all the three candidates nominated by the party wins against three Rajya Sabha seats, which are going to fall vacant.
While the Congress has put up three candidates—lok Sabha MP from Sultanpur in UP Sanjay Singh, Assam PCC president Bhubneswar Kalita and BPF leader Biswajit Daimary, the Opposition parties—AGP, the BJP and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) has put up journalist and former editor Haider Hussain.
It may be mentioned here that the Assam legislative Assembly has 126 Members of which at present 79 belong to Congress, 12 belong to BPF, 18 belong to AIUDF, 5 belongs to BJP, 9 to AGP, 1 Trinamool Congress and 2 Independents
“The combined strength is the Opposition—AGP, BJP and AIUDF is 32 which is sufficient to ensure victory of its consensus candidate. However, Congress and its ally can win all the three seats only by commissioning of ‘horse trading’ or other electoral crimes like kidnapping or bribing etc,” said Mahanta while adding that the Congress leaders have already started approaching the Opposition legislators asking for cross voting or vote against the opposition’s consensus candidate.
The AGP leader also mentioned that during the last Rajya Sabha election from Assam held in 2010 also the Congress and its ally resorted to open horse trading to ensure defeat of the Opposition candidate.
He also referred to the recent statements of the Assam Chief Minister and two influential Ministers of the State cabinet, who had stated to the media that they would secure the votes as they had done before and they would win all the three seats.
“The Chief Minister openly said that it is his responsibility to see that the three candidates supported by him win the election although there is no chance of winning the third candidate,” Mahanta pointed out and said that there will be no free and fair election in the forthcoming election in view of the open threat by the Chief Minister and his colleagues.