Congress seeks to defuse hype over Ahmed Patel's RS election

Ahmed Patel is not contesting the Rajya Sabha election as political secretary to the Congress President but as a party candidate, the Congress made it clear on Monday in a bid to defuse the hype generated over the poll.

The Congress also sought to distance any impact of the election on the stature and the dignity of the Congress President.

“I do not want you to involve the name of Sonia Gandhi every time you talk of Ahmed Patel,” senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters in the Rajya Sabha election that has been made a prestige issue by the BJP.

“He (Patel) is not contesting as Political Secretary. He is contesting there as Congress candidate,” Azad said about Patel's election that appeared to have run into jeopardy after six Congress MLAs quit the party ahead of the August 8 election amid indications that many more may follow suit.

Four persons are in the fray for the three Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant in Gujarat. Besides Patel, BJP President Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani are in the fray. The BJP has also fielded Balwantsinh Rajput, who till last week was the chief whip of the Congress in the Gujarat Assembly, as its third candidate in the Rajya Sabha election.

With the election pitch queered, the Congress had flown its MLAs to safer environs in Karnataka prompting the BJP to claim that the Congress had kidnapped its own MLAs to ensure the election of its leader.

Azad asserted that Patel will win by a margin of 10 to 15 votes and hit back at the BJP for fielding a candidate when it had no surplus votes to ensure his win.

“This is a well-planned move. One can understand if you are two to three votes short, but here the ruling party has minus 14, it clearly means that they intend to steal. They believe in stealing as they have fewer MLAs,” Azad said.