Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls: Rift within Congress is out in the open, once again

Once again, the division within the Congress was out in the open during the voting for the Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls on Tuesday.

Ahmedabad, August 8: The biggest opponents of the Congress are its own party men. That is why the grand old party is losing elections after elections with such 'disgraceful' frequency.

If cross-voting of the Congress members of legislative assembly (MLAs) during the recently-concluded presidential election was not enough, once again as the Congress is hoping against hope of the victory of its senior leader Ahmed Patel in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections held on Tuesday, a large numbers of Congress MLAs seemed to have voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, Balwantsinh Rajput.

Rajput is one of the former Congress MLAs, who along with five others left the party to join the BJP recently. After the defection of the six MLAs from the party, the Congress' strength in the Gujarat Assembly has come down to 51 from 57. In order to win the polls, Patel, the political secretary of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, needs at least 45 votes.

Even before the election results of the three Gujarat Rajya Sabha seats are out two things are very clear--one that both BJP president Amit Shah and union minister Smriti Irani will easily win and second the uncertainty over Patel's victory.

The former Congress leader Shankarsinh Vaghela, who till the last minute kept his cards close to his chest, finally revealed to reporters after casting his vote that he did not vote for Patel. Vaghela also predicted that Patel would not even secure 40 votes, five short of the magic figure of 45 to win the polls.

"When we know that the Congress will not win then there is no point of voting in favour of them. I didn't cast my vote for Ahmed Patel," Vaghela said.

Vaghela, in an act of rebellion, left the Congress recently. However, the veteran leader is yet to join any other political party. His son and Congress MLA Mahendrasinh Jadeja, however, remained tight-lipped after his vote.

Two other Congress leaders, Raghavji Patel and Dharmendra Jadeja, also admitted after casting their votes that they had voted in favour of the BJP candidate, Rajput.

"I have voted for Balwantsinh Rajput. I want to stay in politics but not in the Congress. There are only two parties in Gujarat--the Congress and the BJP. If I am not with the Congress, this is understood where I will be," Raghavji Patel said.

"Congress hadn't been listening to us for a year. We have voted for Balwantsinh Rajput," Jadeja said.

Putting up a brave face, Patel said, "I am confident and the party is confident. We are going to win. Wait for the result to come."

The voting for the all-important Rajya Sabha polls for three seats started at 9 am and will continue till 4 pm. The counting will start at 5 pm.

Recently, the Congress took 44 of its MLAs to a resort near Bengaluru in Karnataka to avoid further "poaching". The Congress alleged that the BJP was luring its MLAs by giving them Rs 15 crore each.

It was during the MLAs stay at the Karnataka resort when Karnataka energy minister DK Shivakumar's properties were raided by the sleuths of the Income Tax (IT) department.

Shivakumar was in-charge of the Gujarat MLAs during their stay at the resort. The Congress cried foul that the IT raids were done by the Narendra Modi government to intimidate the Congress MLAs of Gujarat.

Now, we have to wait till the counting gets over to see how many Congress votes Patel managed to get in the polls.

OneIndia News