Wary of attempts at poaching ahead of the Rajya Sabha byelections to two seats in Gujarat, the Congress on Wednesday shifted all its legislators to a “safe” location in north Gujarat.
The legislators were taken by bus to Ambaji, from where they were likely to be taken to either Mount Abu in Rajasthan or housed in a nearby resort, where the party has organised a day’s workshop.
The move came after half a dozen legislators defected to the ruling party in the run-up to the parliamentary polls and a few more are apparently in the queue to jump.
The Congress camp in the State is facing brewing discontent among some of its MLAs, who are likely to cross-vote in favour of the BJP candidates S Jaishankar and Jugalji Thakor.
The Congress has fielded former minister Chandrika Chudasama and Gaurav Pandya, a local party leader.
“Since the BJP is trying to break up with use of money and muscle power, We are taking our MLAs to ensure that horse trading does not succeed in the Rajya Sabha by-elections scheduled on July 5,” Congress legislator and Chief Whip in the Assembly Ashwin Kotwal told media persons on Wednesday.
There is also a strong possibility of rebel Congress MLA and OBC leader Alpesh Thakor and some of his supporting legislators to cross-vote in the Rajya Sabha polling.
The Congress MLAs led by the Leader of Opposition, Paresh Dhanani boarded a private bus to travel towards Ambaji. According to Congress leaders, all but rebel Congress MLAs were travelling together.
The party officials termed this as a “precautionary move” to “thwart any attempt by the ruling BJP to influence the MLAs for cross-voting.”
Notably, last month, Congress had directed its legislators to refrain from meeting Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Deputy CM Nitin Patel or other ministers, even for works of public interests in their Assembly constituencies, until the completion of Rajya Sabha bypolls.
Earlier this week, the Congress issued a whip to all its legislators, including Alpesh Thakor, to vote in favour of the party’s two candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections. But the polling on both the seats would be held on separate ballot, the Congress is set to lose both the seats for want of numbers as all MLAs would exercise their first preference votes twice. Therefore, BJP having total numerical strength of 100 as against 71 of the Congress is likely to win both seats.
Earlier, during the Rajya Sabha polls in August 2017, the Congress had moved 44 of its MLAs to a resort in Anand and then to Bengaluru to avoid horse trading and ensure a victory for the party’s veteran leader Ahmed Patel.
Bypolls were necessitated in Gujarat after Home Minister Amit Shah and WCD Minister Smriti Irani resigned as Rajya Sabha members following their win in Lok Sabha elections from Gandhinagar and Amethi respectively.
Prasanta Patnaik