BJP retains its three RS seats in Gujarat, Congress loses one

After more than five hours of suspense on the outcome of Rajya Sabha polls, the election commission late on Friday night announced all three BJP candidates victorious while Congress had to satisfy with only one seat that went to its national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil who was party's first choice whereas the second preferred candidate former union minister Bharatsinh Solanki lost.

The BJP candidates- criminal lawyer Abhay Bharadwaj, a tribal leader from north Gujarat's Sabarkantha district Ramila Bara, and Narhari Amin won the poll. Incidentally, Amin was one of the popular leaders in Congress till 2012, the year he switched over to BJP. The BJP fielded him as the third candidate against Bharatsinh Solanki despite the party not having enough number of legislators who chose members of upper house in the parliament.

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Interestingly, Rajkot-based Bharadwaj had represented accused in the Gulberg Society Massacre of 2002 after Godhra riots along with BJP MLA Rajendra Trivedi who is currently speaker in Gujarat Assembly. In 2016, Bharadwaj was appointed as a part-time member in the 21st Law Commission of India.

In February, when the election commission announced dates for the polls, which was to be held on March 24, five Congress MLAs tendered their resignations, forcing the party to take the remaining 68 MLAs to Jaipur. The polls were postponed after coronavirus outbreak and subsequently, when new date, June 19, was announced, the Congress suffered another setback when three more legislator tendering their resignation.

"We were winning two seats but due to horse-trading by the BJP, many of our MLAs left the party which led to our defeat," said senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia after the result was announced. The BJP shot back to say that "Congress lost due to its internal infighting." As a matter of fact, the result is said to be causing another rift in Congress in coming days.

The poll for the upper house had its element of drama since the beginning. First, it was due to Congress suffering resignations of total eight MLAs and then non-cooperation of past allies like Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) which ditched the party at the last moment. NCP's lone MLA Kandhal Jadeja is reported to have voted for BJP against party's whip while BTP's two MLAs-Chhotu Vasava and his son Mahesh- boycotted polls.

The Congress tried to checkmate BJP by writing to the election commission raising objection over validity of two votes of BJP on technical grounds which was eventually rejected which took nearly four hours of examination. This was yet another reminder of 2017 polls when Congress had outsmarted BJP in the nick of time and clinched the victory for its senior leader Ahmed Patel. Entire Congress teams including Shaktisinh Gohil was instrumental in the victory that had boasted the party morale so much that it had almost defeated the BJP in the Assembly polls of 2017.