Scindia spillover: Congress loses 1 Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat even before election
The Congress needed 74 votes to win two of four Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat. It had 73 MLAs of its own. Now, five of them have resigned in stark similarity with 2017 Rajya Sabha election.
One of the demands that Jyotiraditya Scindia reportedly raised with the Congress leadership before quitting the party and joining the BJP last week was a Rajya Sabha berth. He did not get that confidence from the Congress leadership. Though, senior party leader Digivijaya Singh later claimed Scindia had been assured of a Rajya Sabha ticket, which the BJP gave him eventually.
In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress-BJP battle began with the fight for the third Rajya Sabha with both parties assured of one seat each. The BJP played smart and now seems to have secured two seats for itself.
The spillover was seen in neighbouring Gujarat, where five Congress MLAs have submitted resignation over the past two days. This has a direct bearing on the Rajya Sabha election scheduled for March 26.
Gujarat will elect four Rajya Sabha members in the biennial election. Each candidate needs the 37 first preferential votes each to win the Rajya Sabha election from Gujarat.
The Congress had 73 MLAs and Independent legislator Jignesh Mewani extended support to the party. This would have ensured two of the four Rajya Sabha seats to the Congress from Gujarat. But five MLAs sent their resignations to Speaker Rajendra Trivedi, a BJP member.
This reduces the Congress’s strength in the Assembly to 68 – six short of the required number to win two seats. The Congress has claimed support of three more MLAs – two from Bharatiya Tribal Party and one from the Nationalist Congress Party.
On the other hand, the BJP has 103 members in Gujarat Assembly. It requires 111 votes to win three Rajya Sabha seat. There is speculation that more Congress MLAs may quit to tilt the equation more in favour of the BJP, which in a last-minute decision fielded third candidate for the Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat.ADVERTISEMENT
The BJP had earlier announced the names of Abhay Bharadwaj and Ramila Bara following which the Congress announced Shaktisinh Gohil and Bharatsinh Solanki as its Rajya Sabha candidates. It looked a gentleman’s game till the BJP decided to field Narhari Amin, a turncoat from the Congress.
What followed is a slew of resignations in a reminder of the 2017 Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat when Ahmed Patel, the political advisor to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, barely scraped through in the face of sizeable defections to the BJP. Amit Shah was the BJP candidate back then. Six Congress MLAs had resigned ahead of the Rajya Sabha election, and nine others did not vote for Ahmed Patel.
Three years later, the Congress expected to win two seats comfortably but a late twist to the tale has turned its tide. The BJP now hopes to retain its standing in the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat.
Of the four Rajya Sabha MPs retiring from Gujarat, three belong to the BJP. They are Chunibhai Gohel, Shambhuprasad Tundiya and Lalsinh Vadodiya. The fourth Rajya Sabha MP is Madhusudan Mistry of the Congress.
The Congress has dubbed the MLAs submitting resignations as “not honest” but the party shifted about two dozen MLAs from Gujarat to Congress-ruled Rajasthan. In contrast, Gujarat BJP president Jitu Vaghani claimed his party will win three Rajya Sabha seats.
