As legislators of Gujarat vote for four seats to the Rajya Sabha on Friday, the stage is set for a showdown with neither the ruling BJP nor the opposition Congress having necessary numbers to get all their candidates through.
In the 182-member assembly, there are 172 legislators. Remaining 10 are vacant due to resignations and a court case.
While the Congress has fielded AICC spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil and former state president Bharatsinh Solanki, the BJP has fielded Abhay Bhardwaj, Ramila Bara and Narhari Amin, who is a former Congressman.
According to the current numbers, each candidate will require 35 first preference votes to win.
The Congress' strength has reduced to 65 with recent set of resignations by the MLAs while the BJP's strength is 103.
The BJP is banking on the vote of a lone NCP candidate. The Congress, on the other hand, is banking on the support of independent MLA Jignesh Mevani and two votes of Bharatiya Tribal Party.
Unless there is a cross voting, neither the Congress nor the BJP has strength to ensure victories of their two and three candidates, respectively.
The Congress has time and again alleged that the BJP has used arm twisting tactics to force their MLAs to resign.
In the last fortnight, the opposition party had taken its legislators to different resorts and they had also traveled to different districts. Congress chief spokesperson Manish Doshi told THE WEEK that this was in a bid to expose what the BJP had done.
Former Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia said that his party had enough strength to ensure victory of both the candidates.
The BJP also claimed that all its three candidates will win. Gujarat BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya said that there is a lot of discontent within the Congress and the BJP is bound to win on the basis of its performance and numbers. He claimed that in either case of Solanki or Gohil winning, the Congress is to break.