In a dramatically pleasant twist to the high drama on nomination day, election for the four Rajya Sabha seats from…
Gujarat Assembly (Photo: Twitter)
In a dramatically pleasant twist to the high drama on nomination day, election for the four Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat Assembly saw an amicable conclusion on Thursday.
With the withdrawal of nominations by the dummy candidates of both the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, decks are now cleared for unopposed election of two official candidates each from the two parties.
As a result, Union Ministers Parshottam Rapala and Mansukh Mandavia of the BJP and former Union Minister Naranbhai Rathwa and lawyer Amiben Yagnik of the Congress are to be declared elected unopposed to the four Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant in April.
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Apprehending that nomination papers of its tribal candidate Naranbhai Rathwa may be declared invalid due to lack of proper documents, the Congress had asked retired bureaucrat and Dalit leader P K Valera to file his nomination as an independent nominee.
Simultaneously, seeking to cash in on the confusion in the Congress ranks, the BJP had quickly fielded its former state minister Kiritsinh Rana as its third candidate.
Fortunately for the Congress, its nominee Rathwa’s papers were found to be valid ensuring that he remained in the fray as its official candidate. As the legislature arithmetic of BJP’s 99 seats and 77 of the Congress clearly indicate smooth sailing for their official nominees for the four Rajya Sabha seats, both the parties decided to avoid a bitter contest and asked their dummy candidates to withdraw their nominations.
Just minutes before the deadline for withdrawal of nominations was to end at 3 p.m, BJP’s Kiritsinh Rana and Congress-backed independent Valera withdrew their nominations for the Rajya Sabha poll.
With the bitter experience of the nail-biting contest for the three Rajya Sabha seats in August last year, both the BJP and Congress might have avoided the risk of cross-voting by keeping the extra candidates in the fray. Thus, both the parties chose to play safe by withdrawing their dummy nominees.
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