Horse trading in Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls? Shankarsinh Vaghela says MLAs were lured with 'booze and women'

A day after the Congress party expelled rebel legislators in Gujarat, Shankarsinh Vaghela accused the grand-old-party of luring MLAs with 'booze and women'.

The former chief minister who did not join the 44 MLAs the Congress had packed off to a resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru said, "Horse trading was done by Congress leaders when MLAs were in the Bengaluru camp. They were offered 'sharab and shabab' to placate them for voting in favour of Congress candidate Ahmed Patel."

Vaghela also alleged that Congress had engineered a conspiracy so that two votes could be cancelled.

Congress candidate Ahmed Patel beat the BJP nominee Balwantsinh Rajput in a bitterly fought Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat after dramatic developments which saw the Election Commission rejecting the votes of two dissident MLAs of the main opposition party for violating electoral rules.

Patel received 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 secured 38 votes.

Vaghela, who had quit the Congress on his 77th birthday on July 21, had earlier said at the time that he would resign as MLA after the Rajya Sabha election, and that his vote in the poll would be reserved for his friend Ahmed Patel.

However, talking to reporters after casting his vote at the Secretariat in Gandhinagar, Vaghela announced that he had not voted for Ahmed Patel.