New Delhi: Amid high drama, cross voting and allegations of delay in counting, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Monday (March 16) won nine seats in the Rajya Sabha elections including five in Bihar, three in Odisha and one in Haryana as polling was held for 11 seats across three states. In Haryana, counting for the two seats was delayed and started after 5 pm, both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filed separate complaints to the Election Commission while a Congress delegation also met the poll body in Delhi late on Monday evening. Party president Mallikarjun Kharge also wrote to the poll body and said there were “attempts to interfere in the integrity of the elections”. Ultimately, the BJP and the Congress won one seat each. In Odisha, on the other hand, the Congress has on Tuesday expelled three MLAs for cross voting. The BJP won three seats, including an independent candidate it supported while the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won only one. In Bihar, all five NDA candidates won including chief minister Nitish Kumar who announced his shock decision to step down from office less than four months after taking oath as chief minister for the 10th time in November. While there were 37 vacancies in Rajya Sabha across Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana, elections were held for only 11 seats in Bihar, Odisha and Haryana as the remaining 26 were earlier elected unopposed.Counting delay in HaryanaIn Haryana, Congress’ Karamvir Singh Boudh and the BJP’s Sanjay Bhatia won one seat each after counting began late after 5pm on Monday evening. Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that the victory is a “defeat for vote theft”.“From the beginning, it was being said that out of the two seats, one belonged to Congress according to the majority, and one to BJP. By fielding a third candidate, BJP made a full attempt at vote theft, but our MLAs foiled it,” he said.While Congress’ Boudh and BJP’s Bhatia were in the fray for the two vacant seats, the pitch had been queered by the entry of Satish Nandal as an independent candidate. The BJP has 48 MLAs in the assembly, the Congress 37 and the INLD has two while three are independents in the 90-member assembly.Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini alleged that 25% of Congress MLAs had switched sides and that the Congress does not have faith in its own MLAs referring to MLAs being shifted to Himachal Pradesh days before the polls to ensure that there was no poaching.“The way Congress kept its MLAs under house arrest and kept transferring them to different places every hour. This is also the first time in history that I have seen senior Congress leaders themselves becoming polling agents for Congress. INLD’s role has appeared as the B team of Congress,” he said.Earlier on Monday, the Congress also approached the Election Commission in Delhi, while party president Kharge wrote to the poll body alleging a “clear attempt to interfere with the integrity of the election”.Cross voting in OdishaIn Odisha the BJP won three seats including an independent candidate Dilip Ray who the party had supported, and one seat was won by the BJD amid largescale cross voting.While state BJP president Manmohan Samal, sitting BJP MP Sujeet Kumar and the BJD’s Santrupta Mishra won comfortably, the field was open between independent candidate Ray who was backed by BJP and Datteswar Ray – who had been announced by BJD with support from the Congress and the CPI(M).The Hindu has reported that 11 MLAs including eight from BJD and three from Congress cross voted leading to Ray’s victory.The Congress on Tuesday announced that three MLAs-Ramesh Jena, Sofia Firdous, Dasarath Gamango, had been expelled for defying the party whip and voting for a candidate supported by the BJP in the Rajya Sabha election. Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Manjhi on Monday night hailed the victory of the three candidates and said that all MLAs including from the Congress had voted for them.“All the legislators, whether from the Congress party or the BJD, voted for all three candidates with overwhelming votes to advance Odisha’s development. Certainly, they will contribute significantly to making Odisha a prosperous state by raising Odisha’s demands and concerns in Rajya Sabha,” he said.NDA sweeps BiharIn Bihar, apart from Nitish Kumar, the other NDA candidates in the fray who won the polls included BJP’s national party president Nitin Nabin and Shivesh Kumar, the Janata Dal (United) Ramnath Thakur and Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) president and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha.All 202 MLAs of the NDA cast their votes, whereas only 37 MLAs from the opposition Mahagathbandhan voted. Four Mahagathbandhan or grand alliance MLAs did not turn up, PTI reported.This included three MLAs of the Congress and one of the RJD. Speaking to reporters, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav said there had been cross voting in the second preference votes.“We have come to know that there has been cross-voting in the second preference…We all knew that the strength of the Mahagathbandhan was 35, that is, 6 short of what was needed. NDA were three short. Yet, we decided to fight and will continue to fight. If some people had not betrayed us, we would have won,” he said.