Gujarat: 2 more Congress MLAs quit, dents Rajya Sabha hopes

GANDHINAGAR: Even as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage on in Gujarat, politics over the

election

of four

Rajya Sabha seats

on June 19 took centrestage in the state. Two more Congress MLAs — Akshay Patel (Karjan) and Jitu Chaudhary (Kaprada) — resigned on Wednesday, drastically reducing the party’s prospects of getting two nominees elected.

This even as three BJP MLAs have tested positive for Covid-19 and have been quarantined raising a question mark if they will be allowed to break quarantine and cast their vote.

The Congress has been losing MLAs with alarming regularity before crucial polls. It happened before the 2017 RS election, the 2017 assembly election and even the 2019 general election. This time around, five Congress MLAs had quit just before the March 26 RS poll, which was deferred because of the pandemic outbreak.

With the resignation of two Congress MLAs the strength of the Gujarat assembly has reduced to 173.

BJP forges ahead in RS votes game

The BJP has 103 MLAs while the Congress's strength has plummeted to 66. There are two BTP candidates, a lone NCP candidate and one independent candidate. Either party requires 35 first preference votes to get a candidate elected.

The BJP is now clearly in vantage position to win three of the four seats for which elections will be held. It has 103 MLAs of its own and claims to have secured the support of the lone Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA and two Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) MLAs. The party requires 105 first preference votes to secure an outright win for all three candidates which it has fielded.

Meanwhile, three BJP MLAs – Jagdish Vishwakarma, Balaram Thavani and Kishor Chauhan – have tested Covid positive and have been quarantined. With election still a fortnight away, it is not clear whether or not they can vote.

A new dimension has been added to the political drama ahead of the Rajya Sabha poll, with the removal of Shankersinh Vaghela as state NCP chief. There are reports that Vaghela's ouster was a fallout of his opposing party's decision of lone party MLA Kandhal Jadeja voting in favour of BJP candidates.

The Congress is crying foul, charging the BJP of buying out its MLAs even as Gujarat reels under the pandemic crisis. Senior leader Ahmed Patel tweeted, “Isn’t Gujarat government the only one in the world where: 1) Government has abandoned people in the middle of a global pandemic? 2) Refused to fund train fare for poor migrants? 3) But leaves no stone unturned to fund horse-trading activities for a Rajya Sabha election?” In a nail-biting finish in 2017, Ahmed Patel won his RS seat despite resignation of over a dozen Congress MLAs.

Amit Chavda, GPCC president said, “BJP does not have money to buy ventilators for people, but has money to buy our MLAs.’’

State BJP president Jitu Vaghani, while rubbishing the allegations, says the Congress has failed to keep its flock together. “Congress has lost the confidence of people as well its MLAs. This is why they are leaving the party,” he said.

Assembly speaker

Rajendra Trivedi

confirmed the resignation of two Congress legislators. “Two Congress MLAs met me and handed over their resignation on Wednesday. I have accepted their resignations. I asked them to remove their masks so that they could be identified and I also got their signatures verified.” The BJP has nominated Abhay Bharadwaj, Ramila Bara and Narhari Amin as its candidates, while the Congress has nominated Shaktisinh Gohil and Bharatsinh Solanki.