On a day that brought to fore the glorious uncertainties of democracy, BJP President Amit Shah and I&B and Textile Minister Smriti Irani comfortably won their elections to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat.
However, counting of votes for the third and most anticipated contest in the state where senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel was locked in a bitter battle with his BJP opponent in his attempt to enter the Rajya Sabha for the fifth time from his home state Gujarat, was still on till the filing of this report.
Earlrier in the day, as expected, Shah and Irani comfortably won their own elections to the Upper House of Parliament.
The election to one of the three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat was always expected to go down to the wire. But no one could have anticipated the numerous twists and turns that marked the high-stakes battle featuring BJP President Amit Shah who was trying to secure victory for Congress turncoat-turned-BJP nominee Balvantsinh Rajput against Congress strategist and Sonia Gandhi loyalist Ahmed Patel for the third seat.
With BJP accounting for 121 out of 176 MLAs in the Assembly, election of Amit Shah and Union I&B and Textile Minister Smriti Irani was a mere formality. But, it was the contest for the third seat that promised to be a cliffhanger.
In the end, it required the intervention of the Election Commission of India — both BJP and Congress petitioned it several times in the evening — to facilitate counting of votes and, therefore, to ensure a result.
In a late-night development, the EC — Chief Election Commissioner AK Joti and Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat — declared votes cast by two Congress rebel MLAs (Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghavji Patel) who had voted for BJP and publicly showed their votes invalid, following which the counting of votes happened.
The Congress rushed to the EC after the returning officer in Gujarat rejected Patel's election agent Shailesh Bhai Parmar's plea to reject votes of the two MLAs.
In its order, the SC cited settled law and precedents to rule in favour of the Congress.
Needing a minimum 44 votes to win, Ahmed Patel's re-election bid was not a foregone conclusion by any stretch, especially after Amit Shah decided to raise the stakes by making it an issue of personal prestige to see Patel defeated. Till this morning, Patel was expected to fall short by a vote or two.
The initial developments of the day came as a great boost to the BJP's hopes, and suggested that the party was set to be successful in dealing a defeat on Ahmed Patel, and also deal a huge blow to the Congress cadres' morale just three months before the Assembly elections.
Contrary to his earlier announcement that he would be voting for Ahmed Patel, Shankersinh Vaghela told reporters that he had not voted for Patel since he was going to lose. Six other MLAs, seen as close to Vaghela, also voted for BJP.
There was, however, some good news for Congress as one of the two NCP MLAs said that he had voted for Ahmed Patel. JD(U) MLA Chhotu Vasava too said that he had voted for the Congress nominee, ignoring his party's central leadership's diktat to vote for the BJP candidate.
However, mood in the Congress camp grew despondent when it emerged that Kararmi Patel, one of its 44 MLAs, had cross-voted. The 44 MLAs were whisked away to Bengaluru on July 29 to prevent 'poaching' by BJP, and they had returned to Gujarat only on Monday.
Election officials said that voting was completed just before 2 pm, with both camps exuding confident that the result would be in their favour.
"I am confident, and the party is confident that we are going to win," Ahmed Patel told reporters. Deputy chief minister Nitin Patel too said that all three BJP nominees would win comfortably.
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