Gujarat HC refuses to permit Balwantsinh to make ECI a respondent in RS election plea

Ahmedabad:

The Gujarat High Court today refused to give permission to make the Election Commission of India (ECI) a party/respondent in the petition of BP leader Balwantsinh Rajput challenging the election of Congress leader and political secretary of Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel to Rajya Sabha during a nail-biting finish of August 8, 2017 election.

The court of Justice Bela Trivedi ordered Rajput, who had filed the petition after losing closely to Patel, to not to make the ECI a respondent. It also ordered him to amend his petition which directly challenged the ECI order invalidating the two votes in his favour which lead to his defeat. It however allowed him to raise this point during course of argument.

Rajput had challenged Patel’s election vide a petition on August 18 last year.

The court had reserved its verdict on the point of ECI to be made a party or not. It pronounced its verdict today.

Meanwhile Counsel of Patel, Kapil Sibal today also moved an application and sought dismissal of Rajput’s petition on the ground that his client was not served its true copy, which was against the rules governing the election petition.He contended that the copy of the petition served upon his client was not properly attested, was blank at some places, and the procedures required under the high court rule were not followed. Sibal had earlier sought removal of ECI as a respondent from the petition besides dropping of the prayers challenging the validity of the EC order.

During the last hearing, he had told the court that the EC cannot be made a party to the petition, as per provisions of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951.

Counsel of Rajput on the other hand had argued in favour of impleading the Election Commission, saying if the ECI, whose order has been challenged, is not made a respondent, it won’t be appropriate as the EC’s order affected the outcome of the election.

Rajput in his election petition had not only challenged the commission’s decision but also requested the court to disqualify Patel from contesting any election for the next six years owing to corrupt practices adopted by him.

Rajput has also prayed the court to declare him the winner in place of Patel.

In the petition Rajput had alleged that the EC order was patently illegal and ‘void ab initio’ and liable to be set aside as the commission has no power to issue any instruction to the Returning officer for accepting or rejecting any vote as valid or invalid. He has claimed that the RO had rejected the objection to the two votes earlier and his EC has no power to overrule his discretion. It should also not have heard the appeal of the party (Congress/Patel), who as per law could have approached a court for any remedy.

He also alleged that Patel indulged in corrupt practices like bribery and undue influence over the voters and forcefully took away 44 Congress MLAs to a distant place like Bangalore and kept them in captivity. He also spent huge amount on their entertainment in a resort there. Because of this the voters could not exercise their free will.

Rajput also alleged that two of the Congress voters who polled in favor of Patel had shown their ballots to others and their votes were liable to be rejected and should be cancelled. In such a scenario he would be getting more votes than Patel and was entitled to be declared winner in place of Patel.

Notably the closely contested sensational election had become a ‘war of prestige’ of sort for both BJP and Congress.

Two of the three BJP candidates party president Amit Shah and union minister Smriti Irani got 46 first preference votes each and were declared winner. Patel had got 44 while Rajput could get only 38. During the election at least 8 Congress MLAs including Shankersinh Vaghela, his son Mahendrasinh and Raghavji Patel and Bhola Gohil (whose votes were rejected by EC) cross voted in favor of Rajput.

DeshGujarat