Gandhinagar: Amid the ongoing speculations about the numbers of the Congress MLA’s from Gujarat taken by the party to Bangalore to ‘keep the flock together’ till the crucial August 8 Rajyasabha polls on 3 seats of the state, Senior party leader and MLA Shaktisinh Gohil, who was among a few MLA’s staying back, today said that he and new whip of the party Shailesh Parmar have not joined the remaining MLA’s in Karnataka as they have to be here today on the day of scrutiny of the nomination papers.

He also admitted that two other party MLA’s (apart from around half a dozen of so called Vaghela camp ) Jeetu Chaudhary or Kaprada and Chandrikaben Bariya of Garbada could not go to Bangalore yesterday owing to personal reasons.

Notably, Congress has a lot at stake in the elections in which BJP has fielded former Chief Whip of Congress Balwantsinh Rajput who has joined the party after resignation from assembly, as the third candidate. BJP President Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani are the two other candidates of the party. Congress candidate and political advisor to party president Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel is the party candidate. He needs at least 45 votes (as per today’s equation) to get the fifth consecutive entry in to the upper house but resignation of 6 MLA’s so far and around half a dozen dissidents still hovering around, his win can’t be taken for granted.

Gohil however claimed that with the support of the 2 NCP and one JDU MLA, Patel would easily sail through.

To a query he said that Chaudhary who had gone for pilgrimage with his parents would directly go to Bangalore while Chandrikaben, who stayed back owing to the operation of her daughter will also move soon.

He said that around 40 MLA’s have so far reached Bangalore.

About his joining the MLA’s at Bangalore, he said that he ‘may or may not’ move there today.

The Rajyasabha election has been necessitated owing to expiry of terms (on August 18) of incumbent Smriti Irani, Dilip Pandya (both BJP) and Mr Ahmed Patel.

Yesterday on the last date of nomination, the three BJP candidates had filed papers. The scrutiny of papers would be done today. The names could be withdrawn till July 31 and the counting of votes will also take place after the election on the same day ie August 8. Now there are four contestants for 3 seats.

In 182-member Gujarat assembly, BJP along with one dissident (elected on GPP ticket Nalin Kotadia) has 122 members, Congress 51 (including Vahgela who has not resigned yet and his son Mahendrasinh and many other supporters), NCP 2 and JD-U 1.

DeshGujarat