New Delhi: In Gujarat, the voting for the important Rajya Sabha elections on three seats would be started from 9a.m. to 4p.m. today.
The counting will be held from 5 p.m., an hour after the end of polling.
Gujarat Assembly Secretary D M Patel, who is also the returning officer for the Rajya Sabha election said that after the resignation of six Congress MLAs, there are total 176 MLAs eligible to vote.
The election has been necessitated following the completion of the tenures of three existing members union minister Smriti Irani and Dilip Pandya of BJP and Ahmed Patel of Congress.
At the same time, the win of two of the 3 BJP candidates party president Amit Shah and Smriti Irani was almost sure, while the chance of the third-party candidate Balwantsinh Rajput who joined BJP after resigning from Congress was hanging in balance along with the sole Congress candidate Ahmed Patel.
Congress party required the support of 45 MLAs for success of Patel who is contesting for his fifth term for the upper house.
In 182-member assembly, BJP has 122 seats including dissident Nalin Kotadiya.
While, Congress has 51 MLAs along with 7 of Shankarinh Vaghela's camp. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has 2 and Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) has 1 MLA in the house.
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