All 6 elected to RS

• TRS nominee KK elected with second preferential votes
• Six suspended TDP MLAs vote for KK
• Naidu asks Speaker to disqualify them
• YSRCP, BJP, CPM members stayed away
• Daggubati revolts, exercises NOTA option
• Cong MLA Kamala drops blank paper as she did not know how to vote

Hyderabad: All the six official nominees representing Congress, TDP and TRS were declared elected to the Rajya Sabha on Friday evening.

According to the returning officer, Raja Sadaram, Congress nominees- KVP Ramachandra Rao, T Subbirami Reddy and Mohammed Ali Khan, TDP candidates Garikapati Mohan Rao and Thota Sitarama Lakshmi along with TRS nominee K Keshava Rao were elected to the Upper House.

While all others were elected with first preferential votes, TRS candidate, K Keshav Rao was elected after considering second preferential votes. Sadaram said 248 MLAs exercised their franchise in the polling whereas YSRC (17), BJP (4) and CPM (1) members stayed away from the voting. The six Congress rebels, who had recently crossed over to the YSRC, also did not turn up. The seventh candidate, Adala Prabhakara Reddy, withdrew his candidature in the last minute on Thursday.

Interestingly, Congress MLA D Venkateswara Rao expressed his revolt against the party leadership and used the option of None of The Above (NOTA) that was introduced in the Rajya Sabha elections for the first time by the Election Commission. After selecting the 'NOTA' option in the ballot paper, Rao told the media that he had opted for the option after informing the same to the Chief Minister to express his displeasure over the manner in which the party high command was bulldozing with the T Bill without taking into consideration the aspirations and apprehensions of the Seemandhra people. He said the Centre should have opted for setting up the second States' Reorganisation Commission (SRC) instead of directly dividing the State.

TDP MLA Motkupally Narasimhulu made the TDP leaders spend some tense moments as he did not turn up for voting till late in the afternoon. He, however, said he had cast his vote under protest as his name was not considered for the Upper House. Suspended MLAs from the TDP- K Harishwar Reddy, Hanumanthu Shinde, S Venugopalachari and Gangula Kamalakar voted for TRS candidate K Keshava Rao. Following this, TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu requested Speaker N Manohar to disqualify them.

K Kamala, Congress MLA from Mangalagiri in Guntur district, dropped a blank paper into ballet box as she did not know whether to put a tick mark or number. Another TDP leader C Ramakotaiah who was moving close to Congress leaders till recently voted in favour of the official TDP candidate. The Congress leaders were divided on regional lines and while the Seemandhra leaders held a meeting to decided as to who would vote for which candidate in Jubilee Hall, the T MLA met at Golconda Hotel and decided to support M A Khan and Keshav Rao. Speaker Nadendla Manohar was the first person to cast his vote during the Rajya Sabha polls whereas Jubilee Hills MLA P Vishnuvardhan Reddy was the last to exercise his franchise. Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu too marked their ballot papers.