KalingaTV News Network
Gandhinagar: Voting for the crucial Rajya Sabha elections for three seats in Gujarat is underway. The counting will be held from 5 pm, an hour after the end of polling today.
Gujarat Assembly Secretary D M Patel, who is also the returning officer for the Rajya Sabha election said that after the resignation of six Congress MLAs, there are a total of 176 MLAs eligible to vote. The election has been necessitated following the completion of the tenures of three existing members: Union minister Smriti Irani and Dilip Pandya of BJP and Ahmed Patel of Congress.
Two of the 3 BJP candidates – party president Amit Shah and Smriti Irani – are almost certain to win while the fate of the third party candidate Balwantsinh Rajput who joined BJP after resigning from Congress recently, was hanging in balance along with the sole Congress candidate Ahmed Patel.
Congress needs the support of 45 MLAs for the victory of Ahmed Patel, who is contesting for his fifth term for the upper house. In the 182-member assembly, BJP has 122 seats including dissident Nalin Kotadiya while the Congress has 51 MLAs along with 7 of Shankarinh Vaghela’s camp. NCP has 2 and JDU has 1 MLA in the house.
Kalinga AI