Two of the six seats are from Gujarat — vacated following the elections of Amit Shah and Smriti Irani to the Lok Sabha.A day after the Election Commission (EC) announced the date of by-elections to the Rajya Sabha in three states, including Gujarat, state Congress president Amit Chavda on Sunday said the party will move the Supreme Court against its notification of separate polls for the two Upper House seats from the state.
The EC has declared by-elections for six Rajya Sabha seats, which have fallen vacant, on July 5. Two of the six seats are from Gujarat — vacated following the elections of Amit Shah and Smriti Irani to the Lok Sabha.
Chavda said, “In 2017, Amit Shah and Smriti Irani were elected to the Rajya Sabha. After that in 2019, both were elected from their respective Lok Sabha seats. We had our concerns that Constitutional laws might get disregarded and power (be) misused by the ruling BJP government to influence the Election Commission to not hold the by-elections together.”
“On June 2, both Paresh Dhanani (Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly) and I had approached the EC as well as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and demanded that the by-elections be held together for both the seats. Keeping in mind the ratio of the MLAs in the Gujarat Assembly, we were sure that the Congress and BJP would win one seat each if the bypolls are conducted together. But the BJP has used the EC to favour their interests to win both the seats,” Chavda alleged.
Reacting to Chavda’s statements, Gujarat BJP chief Jitu Vaghani said Vaghani, “It has become the Congress’s habit of spreading lies and making allegations against the Constitutional authorities when its decisions are against them. Separate elections for Rajya Sabha have taken place even during the Congress’s time,” Vaghani said.
