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The Election Commission late on Tuesday night ordered rejection of the votes of two rebel Congress MLAs in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections, giving a new twist to the outcome involving Congress President\'s political secretary Ahmed Patel.
EC orders two rebel Cong MLAs votes be rejected
New Delhi: The Election Commission late on Tuesday night ordered rejection of the votes of two rebel Congress MLAs in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections, giving a new twist to the outcome involving Congress President's political secretary Ahmed Patel.
The order by Chief Election Commissioner A K Joti and Election Commissioner O P Rawat came after a high-pitch battle between the BJP and the Congress over the votes of Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghavji Bhai Patel, who had voted for the BJP and showed their ballots to BJP President Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani, who are also candidates.
Earlier, three delegations each of the Congress and BJP made a dash for 'Nirvachan Sadan' within a span of two hours, with the former demanding that the votes of the rebel Congress MLAs be declared invalid, and the latter insisting that counting be taken up "immediately".
Congress was the first to move the Election Commission demanding cancellation of votes of its two disgruntled MLAs for allegedly showing their votes to persons other than the authorised party representatives.
Congress leaders Randeep Surjewala and RPN Singh also produced a video of the poll proceedings to the commission and demanded that votes of Bholabhai Gohil and Raghavjibhai Patel be cancelled as per law since they violated the "secrecy of ballot".
According to the rules, voters for the Rajya Sabha elections have to show their ballots to authorised representative of their respective parties before casting them. Terming Congress' objections as "baseless", a delegation of BJP leaders, including Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Piyush Goyal, approached the EC demanding immediate counting of votes, contending that validity of votes once put in ballot boxes cannot be questioned.
Goyal told reporters after meeting EC officials that the decision of presiding officers is final. If neither they nor election observers objected to it when votes were cast, then their validity cannot be questioned now, he said, and demanded that "the counting of votes be done immediately and results declared". Prasad said the Congress was acting out of fear of losing the poll, in which its senior leader Ahmed Patel is locked in a tight fight with a Congress rebel fielded by the BJP.
Immediately, after the visit of the high-profile BJP team, Congress heavyweight P Chidambaram led another delegation to the EC. After the meeting, Chidambaram told reporters, "If the BJP is so confident of winning the election then it must abide by the law. And the law is very clear. If the ballot is seen by a person other than the authorised person then it is liable to be rejected. BJP was beneficiary of this law on June 11, 2016.
How was law changed in one year. These two ballot papers must be rejected." He was apparently referring to the Rajya Sabha election in Haryana in which BJP-backed independent candidate Subhash Chandra had defeated Congress-supported candidate R K Anand after votes of several MLAs were declared invalid.
