Hailing the decision of the Election Commission to scrap the Rajya Sabha elections in Jharkhand, the former Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, has said this would make moneybags with no political support to think thousand times before jumping into the fray.
In his latest blog entry, Mr. Advani noted that it was for the first time in the history of India that polls to the Rajya Sabha from a State had been halted midway even before the votes were fully counted.
The senior BJP leader maintained that had the counting of votes been done, the matter would have gone outside the jurisdiction of the Election Commission, into the arena of the judiciary and the outcome could have been challenged only by an election petition.
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“Those concerned with the purity of elections have always felt distressed that affluent candidates who file their nominations for the Rajya Sabha without any evident support of the requisite number of MLAs to secure their victory, often manage somehow to squeeze their way into the House or have a pawn elected by buying up MLAs.”