August 09, 2017: JP National President Amit Shah, Union Minister for Textile and Information and Broadcasting Smriti Irani and Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel have won the Rajya Sabha elections from Gujarat. After much drama overnight in the counting for the three Rajya Sabha seat, Amit Shah received 46 votes, Smriti Irani also secured 46 votes while Ahmed Patel got 44 votes.
In a tweet, Union Minister Smriti Irani congratulated Amit Shah on being elected from Rajya Sabha and also wished him on completing 3 years as BJP President. Ms Irani also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and other ground workers for instilling their faith in her.
Congress leader Ahmed Patel succeeded to be re-elected in Rajya Sabha from Gujarat for the fifth term. In his first reaction after the announcement of the result, Ahmed Patel tweeted, Satyamev Jayate. He said, it is a defeat of the most blatant use of money power, muscle power and abuse of state machinery.
Earlier, counting of votes for 3 Rajya Sabha seats had been delayed for hours following objections raised by Congress party against its two dissidents MLAs. The Congress had approached the Election Commission seeking to invalidate the votes of its two legislators who voted for the BJP. Leaders of the ruling BJP also went to the Election Commission and opposed the Congress claim.
However, Election Commission after reviewing the matter agreed with the Congress complaint and directed the returning officer to start counting of votes after segregate the ballot papers of two MLAs Raghavji Bhai Patel and Bholabhai Gohil. Election Commission termed that the vote of this two MLAs termed invalid for violation of law for showing their ballot papers to the unauthorized persons.
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has said that his party, BJP, is not happy with the decision of election commission and will take legal action. Briefing the media persons at Gandhinagar after the announcement of results, Mr. Rupani said that there is no evidence in support of congress complaint for violation of rules. He said, that the Congress candidate Ahmed Patel has won by a thin margin of only half votes despite Congress had 57 MLAs in the house. Mr. Rupani said, that two votes rejected by Election Commission were also in favour of BJP and its third candidate Balwantsinh Rajput could have won by the margin of one and half votes. Criticizing the congress leadership, he said, that Congress is a sinking ship in Gujarat. Mr. Rupani claimed that though Congress had won the one seat of Rajya Sabha on the basis of false complaint, its defeat in coming assembly elections is certain.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated BJP President Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani on getting elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat.
Mr Modi also congratulated Mr Shah on completing three years as BJP President. In a tweet, Mr Modi said, during the Presidency of Mr Shah BJP has expanded its base in several areas and diligently worked towards nation building.
(AIR NEWS)
