Amit Shah wins RS seat, but loses ‘battle of prestige’ to Ahmed Patel

Ahmed Patel by winning the Rajya Sabha elections gave a severe blow to Amit Shah and the BJP.

Gandhinagar, August 9: It's for the first time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah is going to enter Parliament as a Rajya Sabha member of Parliament (MP) after he registered a comfortable victory in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections, the votes for which were polled on Tuesday.

After the results were declared post-midnight on Wednesday, Shah and his party colleague and union minister Smriti Irani, who also contested from one of the three Rajya Sabha seats up for grabs in Gujarat and won, flashed victory sign to their supporters in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, Shah's body language (if that can be taken into consideration to gauge one's happiness), was not that of a 'victorious' man, but a politician--known as a master strategist of the BJP--who was highly perturbed about something.

It was not very difficult to understand what was causing discomfort to Shah, who otherwise should have been visibly delighted as he might be soon given a plump portfolio in the Modi government, as rumours suggest.

The thorn in Shah's heart was none other than senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel. More than his own seat, which anyway he was supposed to win, Shah and his teammates were all fighting to defeat Patel, the political strategist of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

It's the third Rajya Sabha seat which Patel contested and finally won by 44 votes that the BJP was desperately eyeing for. The one Rajya Sabha seat, contested by Patel, became a prestige issue for both the BJP and the Congress in the last few weeks.

It's not that the BJP had to win the seat, especially at a time when the saffron party's dominance lies in both the houses of parliament, but more importantly, Shah wanted Patel to lose it to give a final blow to Congress president by defeating her close-aide.

However, things did not go the way the BJP wanted it to be. In spite of all poll pundits predicting that Patel was likely to lose the elections, finally after a series of dramatic events, the Congress won the seat which is surely going to boost its morale at a time when its ship is almost sinking.

Right from taking away their 44 MLAs to a resort near Bengaluru in Karnataka to avoid further "poaching" by the BJP to approaching the Election Commission (EC) just an hour before the votes for the crucial Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls were to be counted on Tuesday, the Congress this time did not take things lightly and fought every inch for its victory.

Acting on a complaint filed by the Congress, the EC declared two votes of the Congress leaders--Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghavji Bhai Patel--who cross-voted in favour of the BJP candidate, Balwantsinh Rajput, as invalid after they were found to have violated the voting procedure and secrecy of the ballot papers cast by them.

The EC's decision came as a major boost for the Congress, just before the counting of votes started in Gujarat. With the two votes becoming invalid, Patel had to get 44 votes as against 45, a number which could have proven tricky for the Congress camp to win the battle.

The Congress, which a few weeks ago had 57 MLAs in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, was initially hoping for an easy victory for Patel. But things turned upside down after six of its MLAs resigned from the party and the assembly recently. Three of them joined the BJP.

Moreover, a few of the Congress MLAs, close to former Congress leader Shankersinh Vagehla, who left the party recently and is secretly believed to have joined the BJP camp, were unlikely to vote for Patel.

That is when the Congress decided to take 44 of its MLAs to a resort in the outskirts of Bengaluru to avoid further "poaching". The Congress MLAs alleged that the BJP was offering them Rs 15 crore each to change sides. The Congress also accused the BJP of using police to intimidate its MLAs.

Thus, till the last minute nobody knew whether Patel, known to the Chanakya of the Congress, would be able to win or not, although several BJP leaders, including Vaghela predicted his "humiliating" defeat.

Finally, Patel won a battle which saw several dramatic moments and earned for himself a Rajya Sabha seat for the fifth time in a row. Today, Patel and other Congress leaders are certainly glad that they managed to succeed against the might of the BJP. Otherwise it could have proven "fatal" for the grand old party, which of late has lost all electoral battles against the saffron party.

If the Patel camp is celebrating, the team BJP lead by Shah--the Chanakya of the party--are definitely distraught as they had literally given their blood and sweat to ensure Patel's defeat.

But as they say, nobody is invincible and the Congress proved so by giving a severe blow to Shah and the BJP.

OneIndia News