Gujarat RS polls: Ahmed Patel grabs victory on night of high drama

Agencies
August 9, 2017

Ahmedabad, Aug 9: Congress candidate Ahmed Patel defeated the BJP nominee in a bitterly fought Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat after late night dramatic developments saw the Election Commission reject the votes of two dissident MLAs of the main Opposition party for violating electoral rules.

Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi beat Balwantsinh Rajput, till recently the party's chief whip in the state Assembly before defecting to the BJP, polling 44 votes, in the first RS polls in Gujarat in two decades which saw a contest instead of official candidates of major parties getting elected unopposed. Rajput got 38 votes.

BJP chief Amit Shah made his maiden entry into the house of elders and so did party nominee and Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, clinching 46 votes each, an EC official said.

"This is not just my victory. It is a defeat of the most blatant use of money power, muscle power and abuse of state machinery," Patel, who secured a fifth Rajya Sabha term after the tough electoral fight, tweeted after his victory.

"I am happy and I thank my party leadership, my MLAs, party's rank and file who worked like a family. It was a tough election which we won," he said.

A defeat for Patel, apart from being seen as a personal setback to Sonia, would have left Congress rank and file hugely demoralised in a state where Assembly elections are to take place later this year.

The EC's decision to cancel the votes of two Congress MLAs brought down the requirement for an outright victory for a candidate to 44 from 45. Ahmed Patel secured 44, but would have won with even lesser number of votes given the fact that Rajput could clinch only 38.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said BJP would legally challenge the EC's decision rejecting the votes of two Congress MLAs who had backed his party.

Before counting was taken up following the Election Commission's order rejecting the votes cast by Bholabhai Gohil and Raghavjibhai Patel for allegedly showing their ballots to Amit Shah in violation of rules, a high-voltage drama unfolded at Nirvachan Sadan, the poll panel's headquarters in New Delhi. TV footages, however, showed that Patel displayed his ballot to an unidentified person present in the voting hall.

Congress' media in-charge Randeep Surjewala and spokesman Shaktisinh Gohil had earlier claimed the two disgruntled MLAs had shown their ballots to Shah.

The poll panel passed the order after viewing the video recording of the voting process, saying the two electors had "violated the voting procedure and secrecy of ballots."

The usually quiet polls for the upper chamber of Parliament turned acrimonious and chaotic after the Congress approached the Election Commission demanding cancellation of the votes of Gohil and Patel for having shown the ballots to people other than the party's authorised representatives.

Three delegations each of the Congress and BJP made a dash for 'Nirvachan Sadan' within a span of two hours, with the former demanding that the votes of Gohil and Patel be declared invalid, and the latter insisting that counting be taken up "immediately".

The poll panel finally, accepted the Congress's contention and asked the returning officer to reject the votes of its two MLAs and proceed with counting.

That the contest for three Rajya Sabha seats would go down to the wire had become clear the very day when Balwantsinh Rajput, the Congress chief whip in the state Assembly until a few days ago, defected to the BJP and was fielded to take on Ahmed Patel, the high-profile political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

According to the rules, voters for the Rajya Sabha elections have to show their ballots to authorised representative of their respective parties before casting them.

Terming Congress' objections as "baseless", a delegation of BJP leaders, including Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Piyush Goyal, approached the EC demanding immediate counting of votes, contending that validity of votes once put in ballot boxes cannot be questioned.

Prasad said the Congress was acting out of fear of losing the poll, in which its senior leader Ahmed Patel is locked in a tight fight with a Congress rebel fielded by the BJP.

The BJP fancied its chances of getting a third candidate elected as, apart from Rajput, five other Congress MLAs had resigned with two joining the BJP with him, bringing down the Congress's strength in the 282-member House to 51 from 57. It hoped to make further inroads into the Congress' diminished flock of MLAs, which it did. However, that wasn't enough to ensure Rajput's victory.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 19,2020

Chennai, Jan 19: Amid ongoing nationwide protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said that as many as 2838 people from Pakistan were given citizenship during the last six years.

"In the last six years, as many as 2838 Pakistani refugees, 914 Afghan refugees, 172 Bangladeshi refugees including Muslims have been given Indian citizenship. From 1964 to 2008, more than 4,00,000 Tamils (from Sri Lanka) have been given Indian citizenship," Sitharaman said at 'Programme on Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019' event here.

She added, "Till 2014, over 566 Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were given Indian citizenship. During 2016-18 under Modi government, around 1595 Pakistani migrants and 391 Afghanistani Muslims were given Indian citizenship."

The minister, further, said, "It was also during the same period in 2016, that Adnan Sami was given Indian citizenship, this is an example."    

Sitharaman added that people who came from East Pakistan have been settled at various camps in the country.

"They are still there and it's been 50-60 years now. If you visit these camps, your heart will cry. The situation is the same with Sri Lankan refugees who continue to live in camps. They're barred from getting basic facilities," she said.

Asserting that the government is not snatching away anyone's citizenship, the BJP leader said: "This Citizenship (Amendment) Act is an attempt to provide people with a better life. We are not snatching away anyone's citizenship, we are only providing them that."

"The National Population Register (NPR) will be updated every 10 years and is not involved with the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Some are involved in raising false allegations and triggering people unnecessarily without any base," she added.

Comments

indian
 - 
Monday, 20 Jan 2020

Hello Madam,

What Are you ?? Are you a Finance Minister or External Affairs Minister ??

when someone asked about the economy which well related to your ministry you won't even open your mouth, 

but now you are talking about a matter which is not at all your business...

WellWisher
 - 
Sunday, 19 Jan 2020

What a pefect  figure  given by our short time  finance minister. Hope  she wil feed them from her person income wthout ONION.

Fairman
 - 
Sunday, 19 Jan 2020

Stupid, dont know even what they talk.

 

 

It is not snatching anybody's nationality. You dont have right to do it.

 

 
The subject is not snatching,    the subject is disccimination while giving nationality.

 

 

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
February 26,2020

New Delhi, Feb 26: The death toll in northeast Delhi communal violence over the amended citizenship law rose to 20 on Wednesday, according to GTB Hospital authorities.

On Tuesday, the death toll was 13.

"The death toll has risen to 20 today," Medical Superintendent of GTB Hospital, Sunil Kumar, told PTI.

Earlier, at least four bodies were brought to the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital from the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, a senior official said.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
February 11,2020

New Delhi, Feb 11 Congress's performance touched a record low in the Delhi Assembly election as the party bagged less than 5 per cent of the total votes polled and 63 of its candidates lost their deposits.

The party, which ruled Delhi for 15 years on the trot under former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, failed to open its account for the second consecutive assembly election in Delhi.

Only three of its candidates Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar, Devender Yadav from Badli and Abhishek Dutt from Kasturba Nagar managed to save their deposits.

Security deposit of a candidate is forfeited if he/she fails to secure one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in a constituency.

Most of Congress candidates got less than 5 per cent of the total votes polled in their respective constituencies.

Delhi Congress chief Shubhash Chopra's daughter Shivani Chopra, who was the party candidate from Kalkaji, also could not save her deposit.

Former Delhi Assembly Speaker Yoganand Shastri's daughter Priyanka Singh also forfeited her deposit.

The party's campaign committee chairman Kirti Azad's wife, Poonam Azad, lost badly and stood fourth, polling only 2,604 (2.23) votes.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.