Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari has suspended three MLAs from the party — one each in Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa — for violating party discipline and cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha elections on Thursday.
A State-level inquiry is being held in the case of two MLAs from Rajasthan whose votes were found to be invalid. The party would try to establish whether it was done deliberately or a genuine mistake, a BJP spokesperson said here on Friday.
The suspended MLAs are Ram Chandra (Jharkhand), Banwari Lal (Bihar) and Bhimsen Chowdhary (Orissa).
Although MLAs are not bound by the party whip in the Rajya Sabha elections in that they cannot be expelled under the anti-defection law, political parties expect them to vote for their candidates or for independents supported by them in accordance with the directions given.
With an open election system introduced by the Vajpayee-led government — after amending the law — every party knows exactly how its MLAs have voted. The BJP's take on this is that open voting has helped to curb money power in elections for the Upper House.
However, senior party leaders have admitted that money has continued to change hands ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, and that this time was no different. Some independent candidates are believed to have spent several crores of rupees.
Despite three cross-voters in its ranks, the BJP has managed to get all its important candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha, including Ram Jethmalani and independent Vijay Mallya.
