Vote in Gujarat, drama in Delhi
Battle stretches into the night, counting begins after EC rejects 2 votes by Congress rebels
NEW DELHI/GANDHINAGAR: The Rajya Sabha battle in Gujarat shifted to the Election Commission after Tuesday’s actionpacked vote, delaying the result in which senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s re-election bid hinges.
At the time of going to press, the poll panel rendered two contentious votes invalid and decided to start the counting.
For more than six hours counting was put on hold after the Congress moved the election panel, demanding cancellation of votes of two party rebel lawmakers, who have allegedly shown their ballot paper to rival BJP leaders.
This was the latest twist in a fortnight-long drama before the election as the Congress, besieged by back-to-back resignations from six of its lawmakers, herded its flock to a resort near Bengaluru and accused the ruling BJP of bribing the MLAs to defect.
Congress leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala and RPN Singh dashed to the poll panel and gave a video to buttress the party’s allegation that lawmakers Bholabhai Gohil and Raghavjibhai Patel displayed their ballots and, hence, the two votes should be cancelled. Surjewala, the party’s chief spokesperson, said the two MLAs showed their ballots to BJP president Amit Shah and Union minister Smriti Irani.
The BJP has fielded Shah, Irani and Congress turncoat Balwantsinh Rajput, considered a pitch-queering contestant against Patel, who is seeking a fifth term in the Upper House of Parliament.
Shah and Irani are expected to win as the party has 122 lawmakers in the assembly. For the third seat, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Patel’s fate remains uncertain.
The Congress has effectively 51 lawmakers after the resignations, but only 44 are said to be loyal.
The rest owe their allegiance to Shankersinh Vaghela, who quit the party on July 21.
Responding to the Congress move to the poll panel, the BJP deployed finance minister Arun Jaitley, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman to counter the charges and demand immediate counting of votes.
Jaitley, an acclaimed lawyer, argued that the validity of votes can’t be questioned after they went into the ballot boxes.
Prasad said: “If no party or election observer objected to it when the votes were cast, their validity can’t be questioned later.”
The Congress then sent a second team to counter the BJP’s argument.
Former finance minister P Chidambaram, one of the party’s top legal brains, and Ghulam Nabi Azad cited the instance when Surjewala’s vote was scrapped on similar objections during the Rajya Sabha poll in Haryana last year.
His vote was declared invalid as he showed it to Congress legislature party leader Kiran Choudhary before putting the paper in the ballot box.
Chidambaram said: “The law is very clear. If the ballot is seen by a person other than the authorised person then it is liable to be rejected. BJP was beneficiary of this law on June 11, 2016. How has the law changed in one year?”
EC should follow precedents. Disqualify the two ballot papers and start the counting P CHIDAMBARAM, former finance minister The Congress charges are baseless. Their house is breaking up. They are raking up the issues because they are staring at defeat RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD, law minister