Few Cong MLAs 'unhappy' with Patel's RS ticket: MLA to Guj HC

Certain Gujarat Congress MLAs were "unhappy" with party leader Ahmed Patel being reconsidered for a Rajya Sabha seat in 2017, BJP MLA Dharmendrasinh Jadeja told the Gujarat High Court Tuesday.

Jadeja was formerly with the Congress and was among the Congress MLAs who did not cast their preferential vote for Patel in the August 2017 Rajya Sabha election in the state.

He told a bench of Justice Bela Trivedi that certain Congress MLAs wanted the party to give a chance to a new face and were unhappy with Patel being re-considered for the post.

Jadeja is a witness in an ongoing trial in an election petition filed by BJP leader Balvantsinh Rajput challenging Patel's election to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat in 2017.

Rajput, a former Congress MLA, had quit the party to join the BJP ahead of the August 8 election in 2017.

He has accused Patel of bribing MLAs to vote for him and has sought that the high court quash an Election Commission order invalidating two votes cast by rebel Congress MLAs.

He has also prayed that votes of two other Congress MLAs be declared invalid.

The EC's decision to invalidate two votes had helped Patel get 44 votes, the minimum he needed to win. Rajput polled 38 votes.

Rajput's petition claimed that once the Returning Officer had used his discretion to accept the two votes as valid, the EC had "no power to issue any direction to the Returning Officer for accepting or rejecting any vote".

So far, seven MLAs and former MLAs have deposed as witnesses in the case. They are Balvantsinh Rajput, Mahendrasinh Vaghela, Tejashree Patel, Ramsinh Parmar, C K Raulji, Amit Chaudhary and Dharmendrasinh Jadeja.