Gujarat holds a total of 11 members in Rajya Sabha and the term of three of them, Smriti Irani and Dilipbhai Pandya (both BJP) and Congress’ Ahmed Pate ends on 18 Aug this year. The Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections will be held on 8 Aug.
Ahead of the polls both, the opposition Congress and ruling BJP are holding meetings to discuss the names of the candidates to be nominated. Congress has 57 MLAs in the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly. It needs the support of 47 of them for its candidate to win. The main Opposition party also has the support of two NCP legislators and one of JD(U).
BJP’s state Parliamentary Board held a meeting on Monday night at Gandhinagar at the premises of Chief Minister. Many key leaders of the party were present for the meeting including Gujarat unit president Jitubhai Vaghani and CM Vijay Rupani. The party leader said that during the meeting, as per the procedure the names of the likely candidates to be nominated were discussed and the party might meet again before sending the names to the Parliamentary board for final announcements.
On the other hand, Congress has just beared the blow of cross voting during the Presidential polls and the resignation of Shankersinh Vaghela it will be meeting on Tuesday to lay out its strategy for the polls. The party has indicated that it might re-nominate Ahmed Patel, though the final candidate will be decided during the meeting. Gujarat Congress general secretary, Ashok Gehlot has assured that the Rajya Sabha polls will not witness any cross voting. He said that any such indiscipline by MLAs in the Rajya Sabha polls would invite disqualification for six years.
Though Vaghela has resigned from the party, he continues to be an MLA and has informed Congress leadership that he will resign from the assembly membership only after the Rajya Sabha polls are over.