Will Subhash Chandra's RS Destiny Be Rewritten?

Will that sleight of blue ink that wrote Subhash Chandra's RS destiny be rewritten? If R.K. Anand can help it.

- Anoo Bhuyan

INK OF THE MATTER

Chandra’s camp allegedly replaced the official ink

In the Haryana assembly, with 90 MLAs, BJP has 47, INLD 20 and the Congress 17. Both Subhash Chandra (backed by BJP) and R.K. Anand (by Congress and INLD) required 30 votes to win a Rajya Sabha seat.

Chandra could get 17 surplus votes from the BJP after the party’s official candidate Birendra Singh received 30 votes and in addition, votes of 6 Independent MLAs. However, he would have lost even with these 23 votes

But Chandra ended up with 29 votes and Anand was left with 21 after 12 ballots in his favor were rejected. If these 12 Congress votes in his fav our were not rejected on the ground that a different ink was used, then Anand would have won in place of Chandra.

A fortnight after he lost a drama­tic election to the Rajya Sabha from Haryana, controversial Delhi­based lawyer and former MP R.K. Anand is busy mar­shalling his resources to chal­lenge the result. He says he would take the battle to the high court if the Election Commission fails to set aside the election of Zee Media group founder Subhash Chandra. In a letter to the Rajya Sabha chairman, Anand has pleaded that Chandra should not be allowed to sit in the House till the challenge is exhausted. Anand lost the election as 14 votes cast in his favor were declared invalid, 12 of them for having used the wrong colored pen.

Interestingly, Chandra’s autobiography The Z factor: My Journey as the Wrong Man at the Right Time lies prominently on Anand’s desk. “I now know his move­ments in Chandigarh, the calls he made and the people he met,” says Anand, who alleges that a section of the Vidhan Sabha staff and the Haryana Election Com­ mission colluded with the BJP and Chandra to hand him an unfair victory.