AHMEDABAD: In the high stakes Rajya Sabha elections, one vote turned the wheel of fortune for top
Congress impresario
Ahmed Patel.
It was as if providence was at play when the Election Commission ordered Congress votes invalid, bringing the number of votes required to win the third seat to just over 43.
That was because BJP chief
Amit Shah and Union minister Smriti Irani, having polled 46 votes each, were already through. Patel polled 44 votes, or just a fraction more than he needed to prevent the contest from being taken to the second preference phase where BJP, with a comfortable majority in the House, would have won hands down.
All of Congress’s remaining flock of 43 barring one —Sanand MLA Karamshi Patel who cross-voted — remained united and voted in favour of Patel. Top sources in Congress party agreed that the one additional vote which tipped the result in Patel’s favour could have been the one of Jayant Patel ‘
Boskey
’ of NCP.
Other NCP MLA
Kandhal Jadeja
publicly acknowledged to have voted for BJP. “Ahmedbhai got my vote which steered him to victory. We are a UPA partner and there was no question of voting for BJP,” said Boskey Patel.
This was seconded by NCP’s Praful Patel. Ironically, there were many claimants for this one solitary vote which won Patel the self-confessedly “most difficult election of his life”.
Interestingly, the claim that Boskey was the crucial factor behind Congress victory has run into dispute by two other non-Congress MLAs. Chhotu Vasava, lone JDU MLA, and BJP rebel Nalin Kotadiya, both of whom claim have claimed to be the one who tipped scales in favour of AP, as the Congress candidate is popularly known. On the other hand, JD(U) maintained that its MLA Chhotubhai Vasava had cast his vote for Ahmed Patel.
“I have voted for Ahmedbhai. The NCP candidates had close ties with Shankersinh Vaghela and they have voted for Balwantsinh Rajput,” said Vasava.
Rebel BJP MLA Kotadiya too claimed not to have voted for BJP. “I have not voted for BJP. After casting my vote, I made a statement saying I polled for BJP as the party had issued me a whip to vote for their candidate. I wanted to take revenge for 14 Patidars martyred in Patel reservation stir,” said Kotadiya in a video posted on social media addressing
Patidar
youths. Kotadiya had made anti-BJP statement during Patidar agitation and had also cross-voted for Congress nominee Meira Kumar during presidential elections. A count of the votes makes it clear that two of the 3 concerned: Boskey Patel, Vasava and Kotadiva voted for BJP and the saffron managers have identified the NCP MLA as the one who came to Ahmed Patel’s rescue.
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