Disciplinary panel to submit report on cross-voting to AICC today

Chandigarh: Two of the five Congress MLAs who are on the firing line for alleged cross-voting in favour of BJP-sponsored independent candidate for Rajya Sabha polls, on Friday, made a last attempt to plead their innocence before the disciplinary committee of Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee here.The committee, headed by Dharampal Malik, sat for over two hours before finally putting the ball in Congress high command's court for further action. Malik confirmed that on Saturday, the committee will submit its report to AICC general secretary and Haryana in-charge B K Hariparsad."As we began deliberations on the issue, the two women MLAs who had been served notices sought a hearing. They were given the opportunity to present their case and were confronted with the allegations against them. We will now finalise the report and submit it to the high command, which will take the final call," said Dharampal Malik. We issued show-cause notices to five MLAs, namely, Jarnail Singh, Shalley Chaudhary, Renu Bala, Mohammad Iliyas and Mohammad Israil. Both Illiyas and Israil did not respond, appearing to avoid the notices — a move seen as an indirect admission of guilt. The remaining three have submitted their replies, which have been placed on record, Malik added.Notably, besides Malik, other members of the committee included Rohit Jain, former MP Kaiasho Saini, former MLA Anil Dhantori and sitting MLA Akaram Khan. The meeting started at around 4 pm and concluded at 5.30 pm.Meanwhile, interacting with mediapersons at the Congress office, Shalley Chaudhary and Renu Bala, both the woman MLAs, reiterated that they both had voted in favour of Congress candidate Karamveer Baudh and were wrongly indicted by the committee and certain leaders. Similarly, Jarnail Singh, in his reply, denied cross-voting.The cause of incident dates back to March 16 during the voting for two seats of Rajya Sabha elections for Haryana. Three candidates, namely now Rajya Sabha MP elects Karamveer Baudh of Congress and Sanjay Bhatia of BJP and independent candidate Satish Nandal, were in frey.Nandal was sponsored by independent and BJP MLAs.During the voting, five Congress MLAs are alleged to have voted in favour of Nanda and four votes were declared invalid. However, Sanjay Bhatia and Karamveer Baudh were declared elected.Since then five Congress MLAs are on firing line. While Congress has challenged the authority of declaration of invalid votes. MSID:: 130002510 413 |