In a stunning upset for the Congress, the BJP has managed to pull off a victory for its candidate in the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh despite having only 25 MLAs in the 68-member Assembly. The BJP’s victory was the result of cross-voting by Congress MLAs and a draw of lots that went in its favour. 

The loss could be much bigger than just a blow to the Congress’s prestige as it is likely to be followed by a no-confidence vote, endangering the party’s government in Himachal Pradesh – one of only three states that it rules on its own. Compounding the Congress’ pain will be the fact that the Lok Sabha elections are just weeks away.

Declaring the victory of the BJP candidate, Harsh Mahajan, Leader of the Opposition Jairam Thakur said in Hindi, “Despite having such a huge majority, the Congress has lost the Rajya Sabha election in Himachal Pradesh. I want to congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President JP Nadda and (Home Minister) Amit Shah. We have pulled off a victory when our chances seemed very low.”

The Congress has 40 MLAs in the Assembly and its candidate, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, was expected to win comfortably. During the voting for the only Rajya Sabha seat for which elections were held on Tuesday, six Congress MLAs and three Independents supporting the government reportedly cast their ballots for the BJP.

Earlier in the day, Mr Thakur – who was also the Himachal chief minister until 2022, when the BJP lost to the Congress – had said that the Sukhu government had lost the majority in the Assembly. 

Sources have told NDTV that the BJP is likely to move a no-confidence motion on Thursday and their claims were bolstered when Mr Sukhu alleged during the counting of votes that six Congress MLAs had been whisked away to BJP-ruled Haryana. 

“The way 5-6 MLAs have been taken by a convoy of the Haryana Police and the CRPF… The MLAs’  families are trying to get in touch with them and the legislators should contact them. There is no need to worry. There is a government and an opposition in a democracy but the kind of hooliganism (‘gundagardi’) being done by the opposition will never be accepted by the people of Himachal,” the chief minister said. 

Cross-Voting, and A Little Bit Of Luck

Helped by six Congress MLAs and three Independents reportedly siding with its candidate, the BJP managed to secure 34 ballots for Mr Mahajan, reducing the votes for Mr Singhvi to the exact same number. The winner was then decided through a draw of lots, which went in Mr Mahajan’s favour.

Speaking after the results were declared, Mr Singhvi said in Hindi, “Any party fielding a candidate when it has just 25 MLAs and the government has the support of 43 sends out only one message – that they are shamelessly planning to do something that the law does not allow. And I am not talking about Mr Mahajan or this election alone, I am talking about the principle.”

“If you think that one person, or two or nine can suddenly switch ideologies, then I think all of us live in a fool’s paradise. This change is unfortunate for India, and especially Himachal Pradesh, where this culture did not exist. If this is New India, I would prefer the older version,” he added.

The BJP pulled off a stunning extra seat in the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh today — with some help from Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal and a handful of Samajwadi Party rebels. It was a blow for Opposition bloc INDIA, which was looking for two more seats in the Upper House in this round of election.

The second bonus seat won by the BJP was in Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh, with cross-voting by six Congress MLAs.

In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP had forced an election by fielding an eighth candidate for the state’s 10 seats. The numbers decreed that seven seats would go to the BJP and three to the Samajwadi Party.

But as early as yesterday, BJP leaders started claiming in private that a clutch of Samajwadi Party MLAs would cross-vote today. The numbers quoted varied between 7 and 10.

By late evening, the writing was on the wall, with eight MLAs staying away from a meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav. This morning, ahead of elections, the party’s chief whip resigned.

The actual voting today contained suspense and drama, with seven members of the Samajwadi Party cross-voting. The vote of one SP MLA was deemed invalid.

Odysseus, the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since 1972, neared the end of its fifth day on the lunar surface still operational, but with its battery in its final hours before the vehicle is expected to go dark, according to flight controllers.

Texas-based Intuitive Machines said in an online update on Tuesday that its control center in Houston remained in contact with the lander as it “efficiently sent payload science data and imagery in furtherance of the company’s mission objectives.”

The spacecraft reached the lunar surface last Thursday after an 11th-hour navigational glitch and white-knuckle descent that ended with Odysseus landing in a sideways or sharply tilted position that has impeded its communications and solar-charging capability.

Intuitive Machines said the next day that human error was to blame for the navigational issue. Flight readiness teams had neglected to manually unlock a safety switch before launch, preventing subsequent activation of the vehicle’s laser-guided range finders and forcing flight engineers to hurriedly improvise an alternative during lunar orbit.

An Intuitive executive told Reuters on Saturday that the safety switch lapse stemmed from the company’s decision to forgo a test-firing of the laser system during pre-launch checks in order to save time and money.

Whether or not failure of the range finders and last-minute substitution of a work-around ultimately caused Odysseus to land in an off-kilter manner remained an open question, according to Intuitive officials.

Nevertheless, the company said last Friday that two of the spacecraft’s communication antennae were knocked out of commission, pointed the wrong way, and that its solar panels were likewise facing the wrong direction, limiting the vehicle’s ability to recharge its batteries.

As a consequence, Intuitive said on Monday that it expected to lose contact with Odysseus on Tuesday morning, cutting short the mission that held a dozen science instruments for NASA and several commercial customers and had been intended to operate on the moon for seven to 10 days.

Beside Crater Wall?

On Tuesday morning, Intuitive said controllers were still “working on final determination of battery life on the lander, which may continue up to an additional 10-20 hours.”

The latest update from the company indicated the spacecraft might last for a total of six days before the sun sets over the landing site.

The company’s shares were down 8% on Tuesday, paring losses after Intuitive said it was still in touch with the lander. Still, the stock has wiped out most of its gain since late last week.

It remained to be seen how much research data and imagery from various payloads might go uncollected because of Odysseus’ cockeyed landing and shortened lunar lifespan.

NASA paid Intuitive $118 million to build and fly Odysseus.

NASA chief Bill Nelson told Reuters on Tuesday he understood that agency scientists expected to retrieve some data from all six of their payloads. He also said Odysseus apparently landed beside a crater wall and was leaning at a 12-degree angle, though it was not clear whether that meant 12 degrees from the surface or 12 degrees from an upright position.

Intuitive executives said on Feb. 23 that engineers believed Odysseus had caught the foot of one of its landing legs on the lunar surface as it neared touchdown and tipped over before coming to rest horizontally, apparently propped up on a rock.

No photos from Odysseus on the lunar surface have been transmitted yet. But an image from an orbiting NASA spacecraft released on Monday showed the lander as a tiny speck near its intended destination in the moon’s south pole region.

Despite its less-than-ideal touchdown, Odysseus became the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since NASA’s last crewed Apollo mission to the lunar surface in 1972.

It was also the first lunar landing ever by a commercially manufactured and operated space vehicle, and the first under NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite this decade.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)