Following a dramatic series of events that lasted till the wee hours of Wednesday, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel was reelected to Rajya Sabha from Gujarat along with BJP president Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani. Patel polled 44 votes, the required number to cross the line after the Election Commission declared two votes cast by rebel Congress legislators invalid. Shah and Irani received 46 votes each. Congress turncoat Balwantsinh Rajput registered only 38 votes.
Following a dramatic series of events that lasted till the wee hours of Wednesday, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel was reelected to Rajya Sabha from Gujarat along with BJP president Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani. Patel polled 44 votes, the required number to cross the line after the Election Commission declared two votes cast by rebel Congress legislators invalid. Shah and Irani received 46 votes each. Congress turncoat Balwantsinh Rajput registered only 38 votes.
Polling in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections were conducted on Tuesday with four candidates in the fray. From the BJP camp, party president Amit Shah, Smriti Irani and former Congress MLA Balwantsinh Rajput who switched over to the BJP were nominated while the Congress put up Ahmed Patel as its candidate.
As scheduled, polling was conducted between 9.00 am to 4.00 pm, with 176 out of 182 members casting their votes (six seats in the Gujarat Assembly are vacant). However, in a quick blow for the Congress, veteran leader Shankarsinh Vaghela, who recently quit from all posts, announced that he hadn’t voted for the party candidate as he “wasn’t going to win”.
But things turned around for the party after the 44 Congress MLAs, who were taken to Karnataka to ensure they weren’t swayed by the BJP, arrived to vote. After that, things went smoothly… till 4 pm.
The Congress filed two applications for rejection of votes tendered by two MLAs, Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghav Bhai Patel, for violating the polling procedures. The party claimed the MLAs had shown their ballot papers to Amit Shah. The petition was first rejected by the Returning Officer.
On rejection, a delegation of Congress leaders including party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and former minister RPN Singh met with Election Commission officials in New Delhi and raised objections to the RO’s decision. They submitted that their allegations could be reviewed using video footage of the voting. Ahmed Patel also e-mailed the Commission requesting cancellation of the two votes.
Swinging into action, the BJP sent its own representatives, including Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad to convince the Commission to proceed with counting. In the words of the EC, the leaders “added that the concept of secrecy in the elections to the Rajya Sabha is no more valid because the Parliament itself has made elections to the Rajya Sabha through open ballot.”
The ping-pong match did not end here, as Congress subsequently sent a second delegation led by Ghulam Nabi Azad to reiterate their demand to the Commission. And then, Jaitley met the Commission for a second time, again calling for commencement of the counting of vote.
