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Congress leader Ahmed Patel after casting vote for the Rajya Sabha election at the Secretariat in Gandhinagar on Tuesdsay. PTI Photo[/caption]
Gandhinagar, August 8 (IANS): Facing the toughest electoral battle of his career, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel scrounged for every vote as polling for three Rajya Sabha seats in Gujarat progressed on Tuesday. BJP President Amit Shah and union minister Smriti Irani appeared set for an easy win.
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 Bharatiya Janata Party.
Not only this, the maverick Vaghela, who had quit on his birthday on July 21, claimed the confidence that Patel reposed in the 44 MLAs the party had flown off to Bengaluru to prevent “poaching” from the BJP was misplaced.
Vaghela, or Bapu as he is called, claimed: “Four-five more MLAs from the 44 that the Congress is banking upon are also not going to vote for the party.”
As for himself, he told reporters: “I have not voted for the Congress because Ahmed Patel is not going to win and there is no point wasting a vote. We have pleaded so many times to listen to the grievances of the MLAs but it is unfortunate that they did not listen.”
Patel has been banking upon the “unflinching support” of the 44 MLAs, two of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and one of Janata Dal-United.
However, one NCP MLA, Kandhal Jadeja, touched the feet of BJP chief Amit Shah when he arrived to vote and exercised his franchise for the BJP before he left for Vaghela’s residence “for a luncheon meeting”.
The other NCP MLA, Jayant Patel Bosky, is believed to have voted for Patel and so has Janata Dal-United’s Chhotubhai Vasava.
A strong tribal leader of South Gujarat, Vasava said: “Mainey desh ke liye vote diya hain (I have voted for the country)”. Sources close to him confirmed to IANS that he put his stamp on Patel’s candidature.
Assuming that all 44 Bengaluru-returned legislators remained intact in favour of Ahmed Patel, he may scrape through with two votes of the NCP and JD-U. So far over a dozen of the 44 have voted and they all claimed to have backed the official nominee.
But sources in the BJP and close to Vaghela insist that it is not easy for the veteran of four Rajya Sabha terms.
“Not all 44 have voted for him, just wait and watch,” a leader close to Vaghela said.
When the 44 MLAs alighted from a bus that brought them to Swarnim Sankul Complex in Gandhinagar, Gujarat BJP President Jitubhai Vaghela and other leaders welcomed them. Several of them shook hands with the BJP leaders.
But Ahmed Patel continued to put up a brave front. “I have full confidence that I will win.”
Asked about cross-voting by Vaghela and his supporters, he shrugged: “So what (we never counted them).”
With 122 MLAs, on the other hand, Amit Shah and Smriti Irani will win, while the third BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput, a Congress turncoat, may lose if Ahmed Patel wins.
The Gujarat Assembly has 182 seats but is now left with 176 MLAs after six Congress legislators resigned.
The Congress on Tuesday moved the Election Commission demanding cancellation of votes of its two MLAs, who cross-voted in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections and allegedly showed the ballots to BJP leaders against the rules.
Talking to reporters after petitioning the Election Commission, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said the two MLAs had shown their votes after marking them to BJP president Amit Shah, union Minister Smriti Irani and former Congress MLA who switched to BJP Balwantsinh Rajput - all candidates in the election - against the conduct of election rules.
“The votes cannot be accepted at any cost. They should be rejected. The entire event has been recorded in video. We have requested the Election Commission to reject the votes,” Surjewala said.
He cited the example of a Rajya Sabha election in which he claimed that the vote of the Congress Legislature Party leader was cancelled on similar grounds.
Party leader R.P.N. Singh, who was also part of the Congress delegation, said the Election Commission had told them that they will seek a report from the returning officer.
“We have demanded that the election should be stopped. The Election Commission should ask for the video and take a decision after examining it,” he said.
“We have faith that the Election Commission will act to save democracy,” he added.
A battery of senior union ministers on Tuesday approached the Election Commission demanding immediate counting of votes in the Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat and accused the Congress of trying to stall the process because it was staring at defeat.
Led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the delegation told the commission that under Article 324 of the Constitution no authority can interfere with election process once the voting is completed and the ballots are put inside the box.
Briefing media after the meeting, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said if any party has any complaint then only an election petition in courts is the course left for the agrieved.
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.
Congress has demanded the cancellation of votes of two of its MLAs complaining that they showed their ballots to the BJP leaders Amit Shah and Smriti Irani and another candidate against election rules.
When the returning officer and the two independent observers had no objection and completed the process, the Congress suddenly woke up in the evening because it was staring a defeat.
“We repeatedly told the Elelction Commission not to order a fishing enquiry on Congress demand. We told them clearly that once the ballets are cast and the box is closed you (Congress) can go to courts and move an election petition,” Prasad said.
The two ministers said that the delegation demanded that the Elction Commission immediately order the counting process to be continued.