Ahmedabad: A political masterstroke by the BJP in Gujarat that has Amit Shah's fingerprints stamped over it has not just drastically reduced the chances of Ahmed Patel returning to Rajya Sabha for the fifth time, but has also plunged the Congress into turmoil with just a few months to go before the assembly elections.
In a span of less than ten days, everything that could go wrong for the Congress has gone wrong. It all started with 11 MLAs cross voting in the presidential election, putting a dent in the grand projections of Opposition unity. The big blow, however, was the public falling out and exit of Congress’ most popular leader in Gujarat, Shankersinh Vaghela.
His departure has sparked an exodus, with six more MLAs quitting in the last 24 hours, and more likely to follow soon. In ominous signs for Ahmed Patel, Amit Shah has hinted that BJP could make a serious play for the third Rajya Sabha seat from Gujarat.
Here, we give you a lowdown of how the arithmetic works for a candidate to get elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state. And how, by the minute, it is getting increasingly difficult, almost impossible for Ahmed Patel, to secure his berth.
- There are a total of 182 seats in the assembly. Prior to the string of resignations, BJP had 121 seats and the Congress had 57. The NCP has two seats, the JDU has one and there is one independent.
- The total eligible votes, divided by the number of seats (in this case, three) plus one i.e four, plus one is the minimum number of votes required by a candidate to win the seat. Gujarat gets to send three members to the Rajya Sabha. So in Gujarat’s case it would be (182/3+1) + 1.
- However, with six legislators quitting, now the total number of MLAs in the Gujarat assembly is 176, bringing down the total number of votes required to win to 45 (176/4+1).
- This means that BJP President Amit Shah and union I&B Minister Smriti Irani can automatically get elected. The BJP will still be left with a surplus of 31 votes.
- Now in the Congress camp, six of the 57 MLAs have already quit, bringing their tally down to 51. With the possibility of a dozen more resignations between today and August 8, the Congress’ tally might come down to less than 45 in the Gujarat Assembly, signalling trouble for Ahmed Patel’s RS aspirations.
- But Patel’s woes might not end there. There is still the very strong possibility of Congress MLAs cross voting against Ahmed Patel, effectively giving him no chance of winning the RS seat.
This, then explains why the BJP has nominated three candidates – Amit Shah, Smriti Irani and Balvantsinh Rajput – for the Rajya Sabha, and not two, as was originally planned and expected.
That this entire coup was planned well in advance, can be gauged from one fact. Within hours of Balvantsinh Rajput quitting as MLA and from the Congress, his name was announced as the third nominee of the BJP.
“We are confident and certain that the Bharatiya Janata Pary will win all the three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat. There is no doubt in my mind about that,” said BJP's Bhupendra Yadav, after all three BJP candidates filed their nomination forms in Gandhinagar on Friday.
When asked if the BJP was poaching Congress MLAs with the aim of defeating stalwart Ahmed Patel more than getting its own candidate elected, Yadav said – “Words like horse trading and poaching are in the Congress dictionary. The MLAs who are resigning from the Congress and joining the BJP are doing so because of infighting within the Congress and the exemplary work of our PM,” he said.
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