Maken done by his own; did old rivalry come into play?

In the end, the Congress in Haryana was done by its own. Despite having herded its legislators to a resort in Chhattisgarh to keep them in 'safe custody', the grand old party failed to pull it through.

Out of 31 Congress legislators, party general secretary Ajay Maken secured 29. Of the remaining two, Kuldeep Bishnoi voted for BJP-backed independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma and the other vote was declared invalid.

Whose vote was that? Interestingly the one cast by senior Congress leader Kiran Choudhry.

Was it deliberate? Prima facie, it seems so. She is one of the seniormost party legislators, had voted in many Rajya Sabha elections and knew the procedure very well. Obviously, this wasn't her first such election.

Instead of drawing a line under Maken's name and picture as laid down in the procedure, Choudhry tick marked it, resulting in the vote being declared invalid which ultimately led to Maken's defeat.

Choudhry played smart by not cross-voting and rather getting her vote invalidated. That way, she has not indulged in any anti-party activity and can take recourse to an excuse that it was an inadvertent mistake on her part and thus avoid any action against her.

It is also well-known that Maken and Choudhry don't share good relations since many years. Both shared tenuous relationship and would often be at loggerheads during their days in Delhi.

While Maken was initially a member of the inner coterie of then chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Choudhry, a former deputy speaker in Delhi, was against her and part of the Jagdish Tytler-Sajjan Kumar camp. Maken too later fell out of favour with Dikshit and the two ended up becoming bitter rival in the Delhi Congress.

That said, she has in a way jeopardised not only her own future in the Congress but that of her daughter Shrooti Choudhry as well.

Much depends on the Congress high command's stand on the matter. It would be interesting to see if the leadership accepts her mistake or takes some action against her to send a strong message to the cadre.

Regarding Bishnoi, the Congress was not confident of his vote from the beginning itself. Bishnoi had met Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar some days ago in an indication that he is cosying up to the BJP.

Bishnoi had been eyeing the Haryana Congress president's post for a long time but was consistently sidelined by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda who ensured his loyalist Udai Bhan is appointed to the top party post.

Bishnoi had listed some demands for his support to Maken and wanted to meet former Congress president Rahul Gandhi before firming up his strategy. But Gandhi declined to meet him, arguing that similar demands would come from across the country whenever there are Rajya Sabha elections and those would tantamount to blackmailing the party. However, he was assured that some of his genuine concerns would be addressed.

But that was not enough to get his support and he voted for Sharma after listening to his inner conscience.

For Hooda, it is a win-win situation. He tried his best to ensure Maken's victory and none of his loyal legislators went against him or cross-voted. Choudhry and Bishnoi were the only two legislators who did belong to the Hooda camp and were instrumental in Maken's loss.

This is precisely what happened in 2016 when BJP-backed Subhash Chandra scored what seemed an impossible victory over senior advocate RK Anand, who was then supported by the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal.

As many as 14 votes of Congress legislators were declared invalid and senior leader Randeep Singh Surjewala's vote was cancelled after the BJP raised objections for showing it to his party colleague other than the authorised polling agent.

Anand got 21 votes - 18 from INLD and three from Congress- while Chandra bagged 15. He managed another 14 as second preference votes from the BJP.

The invalidation of the votes only the Congress legislators cannot be mere coincidence. Obviously, there is more to it than meets the eye.