"Congress candidates will comfortably register victory": Karnataka CM on Rajya Sabha polls

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], February 27 (ANI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Tuesday that Ajay Maken, GC Chandrashekhar, and Syed Nasir Hussain from Congress will comfortably register wins in the Rajya Sabha polls.
"People who contest elections will claim that they will win. But they do not have the necessary votes. They have only 19 votes. Hence, there was no need to field a candidate, but they are still contesting. All our MLAs will loyally vote in favour of Congress. Congress candidates will win," the Chief Minister said at a press conference in Vidhana Soudha.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah cast his vote for the high-octane Rajya Sabha election. The voting for four Rajya Sabha seats of the state began on Tuesday morning.
Five candidates -- Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrasekhar (all Congress), Narayansa Bandage (BJP) and Kupendra Reddy (JD(S)) -- are in the fray.
In Karnataka, three MPs from the Congress and one from the BJP are retiring and the outcome after the elections will be the same.
As numbers stand in the Karnataka Assembly, the Congress is assured of three seats, and the BJP of one. Each Rajya Sabha candidate needs at least 45 votes in the 224-MLA Karnataka Assembly to win a Rajya Sabha seat in the state.
The Congress, with 135 MLAs, has the exact number to elect its three candidates, Ajay Maken, Nasir Hussain and GC Chandrashekhar while the BJP has 66 MLAs, which means it can easily get its main candidate, party worker Narayansa Bhandage, elected.
Combined with the 19 JD(S) MLAs, the BJP-JDS second candidate Kupendra Reddy will need to get the support of three Independents and get at least three Congress MLAs to cross-vote if he wants to win. (ANI)