New Delhi/Ahmedabad: The Congress has moved 44 of its Gujarat MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru to guard them from being "poached" by the BJP ahead of the August 8 Rajya Sabha polls in the state.
The MLAs arrived at the Bengaluru International Airport at 2:30am and were taken to Egleton Resort near Ramanagara. They were escorted by party MP DK Suresh, the younger brother of Karnataka Power Minister DK Shivakumar.
Some of the MLAs, Suresh said, wanted to visit the Tirupati shrine.
The Congress has demanded that the Election Commission (EC) lodge a criminal case against the BJP for "poaching" its MLAs using "money and muscle" power, a charge denied by the latter.
Three more of Congress MLAs had resigned on Friday, taking the number of legislators who quit the party ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls to six. One of them, Balvantsinh Rajput, has been named as a candidate for the Rajya Sabha by the BJP.
The Congress has re-nominated Ahmed Patel, the political secretary to party chief Sonia Gandhi, to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat.
In the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, the strength of the Congress has now gone down to 51 from 57.
The desertions have cast a shadow on the fate of Patel in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.
Sources had earlier told CNN-News18 that 16 MLAs from central and south Gujarat were shifted to Neejanad Resort in Anand while another 11 from Saurashtra were made to stay at a farmhouse near Rajkot on Friday.
Around half a dozen MLAs were expected to stay back in Ahmedabad.
In a span of less than 10 days, everything that could go wrong for the Congress has gone wrong. It all started with 11 MLAs cross voting in the presidential election, putting a dent in the grand projections of opposition unity. The big blow, however, was the public falling out and exit of Congress’ most popular leader in Gujarat, Shankersinh Vaghela.
His departure has opened the floodgates, with six more MLAs quitting in the last 24 hours, and more departures hinted.
All these developments are bad news for Congress leader Ahmed Patel, denting his chances to be re-elected to the Rajya Sabha.
There are a total of 182 seats in the Gujarat Assembly. Prior to the string of resignations, BJP had 121 seats and the Congress had 57. The NCP has two seats, the JDU has one and there is one independent.
The total eligible votes for the Rajya Sabha elections, divided by the number of seats (in this case, three) plus one i.e four, plus one is the minimum number of votes required by a candidate to win the seat. Gujarat gets to send three members to the Rajya Sabha. So in Gujarat’s case it would be (182/3+1) + 1.
However, with six legislators quitting, now the total number of MLAs in the Gujarat Assembly is 176, bringing down the total number of votes required to win to 45 (176/4+1).
This means that BJP President Amit Shah and Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani can automatically get elected. The BJP will still be left with a surplus of 31 votes.
Now in the Congress camp, six of the 57 MLAs have already quit, bringing their tally down to 51. With the possibility of a dozen more resignations till August 8, the Congress’ tally might come down to less than 45 in the Gujarat Assembly, signaling trouble for Patel’s RS aspirations.
The BJP has nominated candidates for all three seats– Shah, Irani and Rajput –not two, as originally planned and expected.
“We are confident and certain that the Bharatiya Janata Party will win all the three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat. There is no doubt in my mind about that," said BJP's Bhupendra Yadav, after all three BJP candidates filed their nomination forms in Gandhinagar on Friday.
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