Gandhinagar: Three candidates of ruling BJP and two of main opposition Congress today filed their nomination papers for the 4 Rajyasabha seats in Gujarat paving way for an interesting ‘electoral battle’ on the election day of March 26.

So far of the four RS seats going for polls in the western state,3 are currently with the ruling BJP and one with Congress. The terms of BJP RS MPs Chunibhai Gohle, Lalsinh Vadodiya and Shambhu Prasad Tundiya and Congress’ Madhusudan Mistry would complete in April this year.

Looking at the changed arithmetic of the state assembly Congress has fielded two candidates even though it was slightly short of required figures to win the two seats. It has announced former union minister Bharatsinh Solanki and former Gujarat minister and national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil as its candidate.

BJP has announced three candidates making the battle very interesting. It had earlier announced two candidates Abhay Bhardwaj and Ramila Bara initially but this morning it has named former Deputy CM of the state Narhari Amin who had switched to the party after leaving Congress as its third candidate.

All the five candidates filed their papers today on the last day of nominations before the assembly secretary and presiding officer.

Deputy CM and senior BJP leader Nitin Patel today claimed that BJP would win all the three seats as many of the MLA’s of faction-ridden Congress would support its candidates. He claimed that many of the Patidar community MLA’s of Congress were aggrieved as the party has not fielded any candidate of their community. He said that Amin, a patidar himself and had close contacts with many Congress MLAs would certainly win the election.

Solanki and Gohil on the other hand claimed that despite all out efforts of the ruling party to poach and horse-trade its MLA’s they won’t support their candidates. ‘It was like a tradition for BJP to do such things during elections. But we should remember what had happened during the RS polls in which despite all those attempts, Ahmed Patel of
congress had won,’ Solanki said.

Looking at the current arithmetic of the state assembly BJP and Congress can got 2 seats each now if no cross-voting happens. In the 182 member assembly, BJP has 103 seats while Congress has 72.

In Gujarat, the home state of PM Narendra Modi, BJP had won all the 26 Loksabha seats for the second consecutive time in the last election but in Rajyasabha Congress has got 4 of the 11 seats from the state quota. The record of maximum number of five times of victory in RS election from Gujarat is also with Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel.

Notably, during the RS bypoll on two seats vacated by union home ministers Amit Shah and Smriti Irani, BJP again had emerged victorious last year.