Voting for 3 Rajyasabha seats begin, Desai first to vote, Vaghela did not vote for Congress, Raghavji Patel claims of cross voting

Gandhinagar: The voting for the crucial Rajyasabha elections on three seats of Gujarat began at 9 am here today amid tight security and BJP Whip Pankaj Desai was the first to cast the vote.

Shankersinh Vaghela who cast it vote later said that he has note voted for Congress but he did not clarify to whom he has voted. His supporter Congress MLA Raghavji Patel openly said that he has voted for BJP. Mahendrasinh Vaghela also voted. CM Vijay Rupani after voting claimed that all the 3 BJP candidates would win.

The voting timing is up to 4 pm but it is likely to conclude much before it.

The counting will also be held from 5 pm, an hour after the end of polling. The result was likely to be clear by 730 pm.

The polling station for the election, which incidentally was first such poll to take place after 1996 (not needed earlier owing to consensus), has been made in Swarnim Sankul 2, the premises of the seat of the government here.

Gujarat Assembly Secretary D M Patel, who is also the returning officer for the Rajyasabha election said that after the resignation of six Congress MLA’s, there were a total of 176 voters (MLA’s) for the polls.

The election has been necessitated owing to the nearing of the completion of the tenures of three existing members union minister Smriti Irani and Dilip Pandya(both BJP) and Ahmed Patel (Congress).

Meanwhile the win of two of the 3 BJP candidates party president Amit Shah and Mrs Irani was almost certain while the fate of the third party candidate Balwantsinh Rajput who joined BJP after resigning from Congress was hanging in balance along with the sole Congress candidate Ahmed Patel, the political secretary of Sonia Gandhi despite Congress’ claim of having enough numbers. He needs the support of 45 MLA’s for getting a fifth time entry in to the upper house. In 182 member assembly, BJP has 122 seat including dissident Kotadiya (who joined the dinner of BJP MLA’s last night) , Congress 51 (along with 7 of Vaghela camp) and NCP 2 (announced support to BJP)and JD U 1 (CM Rupani claimed it would go for BJP).

All the four candidates were present in Swarnim Sankul since morning where the tight ballot battle for upper house was on.

The NOTA option has made the election scenario even more interesting with all kind of speculations and in the ‘war like situation’ for every single first preference vote matters.

Congress and BJP both have issued whips for the election. The 44 Congress MLA’s flocked at a farmhouse in central Gujarat after their arrival to Gujarat yesterday morning from Bengaluru where they were in another resort for 9 days, are being brought for voting in a bus here.

BJP has claimed victory on all three seats while Patel has also expressed confidence of his fifth consecutive entry to the upper house with a convincing win.

The brief 2 day monsoon session of Gujarat Assembly is also starting today in Mahatma Mandir here and it would be for the first time that any session would be held outside the current assembly building which came in to existence in 1982 owing to ongoing maintenance work.

A senior Congress leader said that the 44 MLA’s of the party would first come to vote together and then move to Mahatma Mandir for the assembly session.

DeshGujarat