In a high voltage drama in Gujarat Rajya Sabha poll results, both the Congress and the BJP desperately knocked at the door of the Election Commission with the former demanding the cancellation of votes of two of its MlAs, who publicly flashed their voting preferences in favour of the BJP.
Both the BJP and the Congress traded charges after counting of votes, which had to be suspended as the Congress claimed its two MlAs had violated law regarding the Rajya Sabha elections.
The BJP delegation included Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Nirmala Sitharaman. The Congress fielded former Union Ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram, Sushilkumar Shinde and Anand Sharma among others.
Both the parties sent three back-to-back delegations to place their case before the ECI.
The Congress was the first to move the EC demanding cancellation of votes of its two rebel MlAs for allegedly showing their votes to BJP election agent and leaders other than the authorised representatives of his own party.
Earlier, Congress leaders led by Randeep Surjewala and RPN Singh met the EC and claimed that votes of Bholabhai Gohil and Raghavji Patel be cancelled as per law since they violated the “secrecy of ballot”. The Congress also produced a video of the poll proceedings before the commission.
According to the rules, voters for the Rajya Sabha elections have to show their ballots to the authorised representative of their party before exercising their franchise. “The votes cast by these two MlAs are required to be cancelled for the reason of voting procedure violation,” the Congress said in its memorandum to the commission. Surjewala said the two legislators, instead of showing their ballots to party’s election agent, displayed it to BJP president Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani, which he said, “should not be accepted”.
Soon after the Congress delegation, a high profile delegation led by led by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met the poll panel and reiterated that the Congress demand has no basis in law as the Returning Officer and the observer had not placed any objection.
Describing the Congress’ demand for cancellation of votes in Gujarat as “baseless and an act of desperation’, Union law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Congress had not raised any objection during the day but took it up when it realised that it was losing the poll.
Immediately after the visit of the high-profile BJP team, Congress heavyweight P Chidambaram led another delegation to the EC.
After the meeting, Chidambarm said, “If the BJP is so confident of winning the election then it must abide by the law. And the law is very clear. If the ballot is seen by a person other than the authorised person then it is liable to be rejected. The BJP was beneficiary of this law on June 11, 2016. How was law changed in one yearIJ These two ballot papers must be rejected.”
He was referring to the Rajya Sabha election in Haryana in which BJP-backed independent candidate Subhash Chandra had defeated Congress-supported candidate RK Anand after votes of several MlAs were declared invalid.
Objecting to Congress’ contention, BJP leaders paid a second and third visit to the commission and insisted on their demand for immediate counting of the votes. “Election is over and the situation of confusion should end”, Prasad said, adding that the Congress is “crumbling” and “its people are leaving the party”.