Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls: Voting begins, Congress, BJP express confidence

Gujarat [India],Aug 8 (ANI): The voting for the crucial Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections for three seats begun on Tuesday with many political leaders reaching the assembly to cast their vote. The voting will continue till 4 p.m. while the counting will be held from 5 p.m. Political leaders including former Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela, Congress' Ahmed Patel arrived for voting at Gujarat assembly. Adding to Ahmed Patel's misery, Vaghela said that he did not cast his vote for Patel. "When we know that Congress will not win then there is no use of voting in favour of them. I didn't cast my vote for Ahmed Patel," Vaghela said. Meanwhile Patel expressed confidence and said, "I am confident, party is confident we are going to win. Wait for the result to come." 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 total 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. Meanwhile, the win of two of the three BJP candidates party president Amit Shah and Smriti Irani was almost certain, while the fate of the third party candidate Balwantsinh Rajput who joined BJP after resigning from Congress was hanging in balance along with the sole Congress candidate Ahmed Patel. Congress needs the support of 45 MLAs for victory of Patel who is contesting for his fifth term for the upper house. In 182 member assembly, BJP has 122 seats including dissident Nalin Kotadiya. While, Congress has 51 MLAs along with seven of Shankarinh Vaghela's camp. NCP has two and JD(U) has one MLA in the house.(ANI)