Gujarat RS polls: Ahmed Patel does it, will sit along with first-timer Amit Shah in the Rajya Sabha

Ahmed Patel, Amit Shah and Smriti Irani are the Rajya Sabha MPs from Gujarat.

Earlier, the Election Commission invalidated the vote of two rebel Congress legislators who violated election norms in the process of counting votes for Rajya Sabha polls. Counting has begun.

Congress had claimed that it’s two MLAs—Raghavji Patel and Bhola Gohil—belonging to the Shankarsinh Vaghela group showed their ballots to the party's authorised agent as well as to the BJP's election agent as to how they had voted.

In a letter to the presiding officer, Rajya Sabha Elections, Gujarat, the party had written that the votes cast by these two MLAs needed to be cancelled for the reason of “voting procedure violated.”

Former Chief Election Commissioner SY Qurashi had told CNN-News18 that a legislator could not show his vote to anybody, except for his own party representative.

Counting was held up as the Election Commission tried to address the issue raised by the Congress party.

The BJP had nominated party president Amit Shah, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani and Congress turncoat Balwantsinh Rajput for the three seats. Balwantsinh Rajput was the Congress’ chief whip in the Assembly.