EC upholds Congress complaint, rejects votes by MLAs; boost for Ahmed Patel

The Election Commission on Tuesday night declared invalid the votes cast by two Congress legislators in the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat giving a filip to Ahmed Patel.

After perusing petitions of the Congress and the counter-petition of the BJP, the Election Commission directed the Returning Officer of the Gujarat Rajya Sabha poll to reject the votes cast by Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghav Bhai Patel at the time of counting of votes by segregating the ballot papers concerned.

The Commission also directed the resumption of counting of votes in the elections where Ahmed Patel is in a direct fight with BJP's Balwantsinh Rajput, a turncoat Congress MLA who is the supporter of rebel leader Shankarsinh Vaghela.

The Commission said it had viewed the video recording cast by the two MLAs and “found they had violated the voting procedure and secrecy of the ballot papers cast by them when they exercised their right to vote.”

The Congress had complained to the poll authority that these two MLAs had shown their ballot papers to BJP chief Amit Shah and others who were not authorised to see them.