In BJP vs Congress, How Numbers Stack Up For Gujarat Rajya Sabha Elections

Ahmedabad: After a meeting with 44 legislators of his party at a resort in Anand, about 76 km from Ahemdabad, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said on Monday he is confident that he will be re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in elections today. Numbers show that Mr Patel's election could be touch and go.

"I have full confidence in my victory tomorrow(Tuesday) despite the BJP's attempts and the numbers will surprise everyone," Mr Patel asserted at the resort, counting, "Besides the 44 Congress legislators, we have the support of Janata Dal-United, Nationalist Congress Party and Shankersinh Vaghela."

But one of the two legislators of Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party or NCP in Gujarat, Kandal Jadeja, told NDTV on Monday night that he has been asked by the party leadership to vote for the BJP.
 Elections will be held for three Rajya Sabha seats from the state today. A candidate needs the support of 45 legislators to win straightaway; the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly was reduced to 176 after six Congress legislators quit recently, with three joining the BJP. Those six can't vote.

BJP chief Amit Shah, who makes his debut in Parliament and union minister Smriti Irani, who is seeking re-election, will win two of the seats given the BJP's big majority.
 The party has 121 MLAs and so has 31 extra votes, after ensuring the victory of its two leaders and has fielded for the third seat, Balwantsinh Rajput, one of the Congressmen who resigned recently, to challenge Ahmed Patel, who is political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

"The BJP will win three seats and Ahmed Patel will definitely lose," said Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani of the BJP. The party's central leader in charge of Gujarat Bhupendra Yadav said, "Our math is right, we have three more MLAs than we need and are confident that we will win."

Amit Shah is camped in Gandhinagar and met all the BJP's legislators for four and a half hours on Monday. Sources in the BJP said they expect two to three Congressmen from among the 44 at the Anand resort to defy the Congress' whip or formal order and cross-vote today.
 If that happens, he will be left totally dependent on the NCP's two, the single Janata Dal United MLA and north Gujarat heavyweight Shankarsinh Vaghela. Mr Vagehla, widely believed to have engineered the Congress rebellion after he exited the party two weeks ago, was cryptic on Monday, refusing to reveal his plans.

The NCP had not yet issued a whip to its two MLAs on which way to vote. The Janata Dal United MLA, said to be close to Ahmed Patel, said a few days ago that he would back the Congress leader, but has since been unreachable. His party chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has recently partnered with the BJP in Bihar.

If neither Balwantsinh Rajput nor Ahmed Patel gets the support of 45 MLAs, and there is a second round of counting preferential votes, the game is over for Sonia Gandhi's political adviser, given the BJP's far greater numbers in the House. (Each MLA has to record his first preference, second preference and so on.)

A defeat will have a deep impact on the Congress' morale ahead of assembly elections. The BJP, rubbishing the Congress' charge that it is "poaching" MLAs, has said Sonia Gandhi and her son and deputy Rahul Gandhi are unable to keep their party together.

Ahmed Patel reiterated that he is contesting as a Congress candidate and that today's election "has nothing to do with the Congress president."