Ashok Gehlot Confident About Ahmed Patel’s Win In Gujarat Rajya Sabha Polls

Needing 45 first preference votes for a clean victory, Patel’s day began with shockers from rebel leader Shankersinh Vaghela, who along with five of his supporters, cross-voted for the BJP.

The Congress is fighting the poll with its heavyweight candidate Ahmed Patel whose election also is important for Congress chief Sonia Gandhi since he is a close aide being and functions as the political secretary the Congress chief.

Congress had whisked away 44 of its MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru to prevent them from switching sides and defecting to the BJP. Seven of them refused and 44 MLAs were then taken to Bengaluru; they returned to the state on Monday to take part in the election.

In a jolt to the Congress, six of its MLAs quit the party on July 27 and July 28.

Congress and the BJP with 57 and 58 seats respectively are now standing neck-to-neck in the Rajya Sabha. It was the BJP’s way of pressurising its MLAs to follow the party line, be it in Jharkhand or Uttarakhand. Congress will see a comfortable win on Tuesday. And it depicts that the MLA’s locking policy of Congress that played over the last few days for keeping MLA’s safe in the Karnataka’s resort has failed.

“Votes of the two MLAs should be cancelled”, Surjewala told reporters after meeting EC officials.

If NCP MLA’s claim comes true, it would be uphill task for Ahmed Patel to retain his seat for the fifth time. So numbers will not be a problem.

Later, Shaktisinh Gohil and Arjun Modhwadia of the Congress and state BJP president Jitu Vaghani viewed the videography of the polling.

Prasad said the Congress had no objection in the morning and did not ask for keeping aside the two impugned votes or asked them to be declared as tendered. We had 57 MLAs and they had attempted to sabotage free elections by reducing our number to 25. “We have voted for Balwantsinh Rajput”, Jadeja said. The BJP’s Amit Shah and Smriti Irani are set to be chosen to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in surveying on Tuesday, which has turned into a high-stakes fight for Congress gathering’s Ahmed Patel, on account of infighting and abdications.

Until recently, Rajput was Congress’s chief whip in the House before defecting to BJP.

A defeat for Ahmed Patel will confirm senior party leader Jairam Ramesh’s worst fear.

Legislators to Parliament’s Upper House are elected by the method preferential voting which involves ranking candidates in order of preference. Meanwhile, the Congress too covered some ground and the difference in its vote share vis-a vis the BJP was just around eight percent. “Bad timing of shifting MLAs is something which will make them (Congress) suffer”, ANI quoted the former Congress leader as saying. He said there was no point voting for the Congress since their chances of winning were bleak. However, the apex court refused to stay the option.

According to the rules, voters for the Rajya Sabha elections have to show their ballots to their respective party’s authorised representative before exercising their franchise. “Thus, I have not given my vote to Ahmed Patel”, he said.