Invalid votes, cross-voting pulled NC’s vote share down in each round of the J&K Rajya Sabha poll

The biennial election for the four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a curious case of six invalid votes across three rounds of polling, increasing in each round. The National Conference won three seats, while the BJP snagged a surprise win in the remaining seat.

According to the J&K Chief Electoral Office, during the first round of polling where National Conference (NC) candidate Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan was pitted against BJP’s Ali Muhammad Mir, one vote was reported invalid out of a total electorate of 87. Though the J&K Assembly is an 88-member house, J&K Peoples MLA Sajad Lone decided to abstain from voting

The winning vote share for the first round was fixed at 44. The NC’s Mr. Ramzan bagged 58 votes and the BJP’s Mr. Mir got 28 votes, which is the BJP’s total strength in the House.

The NC, which has 41 MLAs, was supported by all the regional parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party (with three members), Congress (with six members), and the CPI(M), Awami Ittehad Party, and Aam Aadmi Party, with one MLA each. There are seven Independents in the Assembly and five are part of the Omar Abdullah-led government.

In the second round of polling, however, where the NC’s Sajjad Ahmad Kichloo was pitted against the BJP’s Rakesh Mahajan, the NC’s vote share dropped to 55 out of a total 87 votes. The invalid votes jumped to two, and the winning quota for the seat was set at 43. This time, the BJP candidate Kumar managed 29 votes even though the BJP has only 28 MLAs, indicating a case of cross-voting.

‘Mysterious rise in invalid votes’

The third round of polling saw the NC’s vote share drop still further to just 52. Three candidates were in the fray, two from the NC and one from the BJP. This third round saw three invalid votes out of the 87 cast, according to Election Commission data, and the winning vote share was set at 28 for the third round.

The BJP’s Mr. Sharma managed 32 votes, four more than the BJP’s strength in the Assembly, while the NC candidates Shammi Oberoi and Imran Nabi Dar bagged 31 votes and 21 votes, respectively. This means that the NC lost seven votes, with four MLAs cross-voting and three other votes found invalid.

“The invalid votes are as mysterious to us as the cross-voting. How is it possible that an MLA cast his vote in the first two rounds and fails to do it correctly in the third round,” a senior NC leader told The Hindu on the condition of anonymity.