Ahmedabad: Politics heated up in the state capital Gandhinagar after June 19 was declared as the new date for the Rajya Sabha elections announced.
Eight Congress legislators have resigned from the assembly since March, and apart from two other vacancies due to court cases over poll-related disputes, the effective strength of the 182-member Gujarat assembly now stands at 172.
Now all the three BJP candidates are sure to win the elections but in Congress, with 65 legislators, is now in a position to win just one seat while both Bharatsinh Solanki and Shaktisinh Gohil remain in the fray for election to the Rajya Sabha from the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah. A candidate will need 35 votes to get elected to the House.
Congress high command can issue a whip on the party MLAs but if not then the MLAs will vote for the candidate they think would perform well in the Rajya Sabha or who is a more popular leader.
When ETV Bharat team asked Congress leader that who has more chances to win the coming election the leader refused to respond to the question. However, the State Congress president Amit Chavda has earlier expressed the confidence that both the party candidates would win the election and the party had already worked out a strategy.
Shaktisinh Harishchandrasinh Gohil is a veteran Congress leader. At present, he is in-charge of party affairs in Bihar and was given the additional charge of Delhi.
He is a national spokesperson of the All India Congress. Shaktisinh was a cabinet minister in the state from 1991 to 1995 as finance, health, education and Narmada project minister.
He was the leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly from 2007 to 2012. He is considered a close confidante of both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Therefore, he hopes to be get elected to the Rajya Sabha. Bharatsinh too is said to be close to Rahul Gandhi.
Bharatsinh Madhavsinh Solanki is the son of former Gujarat Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki. He too is a veteran party leader. He had headed the party in Gujarat as the state Congress president.
Bharatsinh was a minister of state (independent charge) for drinking water and sanitation in the Manmohan Singh government at the centre till 2014. Earlier, he was a minister of state for power.
He was the AICC secretary between 2004 and 2006. He had won the Lok Sabha elections twice in 2004 and 2009. However, he had lost to BJP’s Dilipbhai Patel from the Anand Lok Sabha seat in 2014.
While BJP has managed the resignation of 8 Congress MLAs, yet there is a fear of cross-voting. Therefore, to ensure the victory of all its three candidates, the BJP will need to get the votes of two MLAs of Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) and one MLA of the Nationalist Congress Party.
At present, the Congress party has lodged all its MLAs in different resorts so that the BJP does not succeed in buying their support.
The Congress is also banking on the support of the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) which has two legislators, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with one and independent legislator Jignesh Mevani.
The state capital is rife with talk about horse-trading as the BJP is trying to engineer a crack in the Congress legislature party.
Whereas the Congress leadership has become vigilant against the possibility of poaching of its MLAs by the BJP, its MLAs who have resigned ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls are openly speaking against the Congress leadership.
The Rajya Sabha elections to 55 seats were earlier scheduled to be held on March 26 but deferred due to the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent imposition of the nationwide lockdown from March 25.
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