In a morale booster for the Opposition, the NDA’s Deputy Chairman candidate, Janata Dal (United)’s Harivansh, lost the election for a position in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Monday.
An election was forced — the first in five years — for two seats in the PAC, after the BJP refused to concede the Opposition’s demand to let Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) C.M. Ramesh continue on the Committee.
As per the results, Mr. Ramesh got 106 votes, the BJP’s Bhupender Yadav got 69 votes and Mr. Harivansh got only 26 votes. Both Mr. Ramesh and Mr. Yadav will now make it to the PAC.
“This is a landslide victory and I thank the Opposition parties for supporting me. I got 106 votes even when 25 members of Congress, five of Samajwadi Party, three of NCP and one of CPI (M) were absent, so one can extrapolate the numbers for the Deputy Chairman election,” Mr. Ramesh told The Hindu.
Mr. Harivansh’s defeat comes three days before he will fight the battle for Deputy Chairman. Though the NDA has not announced his name officially, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar has told Opposition leaders that he will be the NDA candidate.
“The Opposition had requested that the two seats should be filled by consensus, but we were told that BJP President Amit Shah was adamant on having a contest. So we gave him one,” an Opposition leader said.
