Jaipur, June 10: Voting for the Rajya Sabha biennial elections, which began at 9 a.m. on Friday, was underway in Rajasthan Assembly premises and it will continue till 4 p.m.
The results will be declared after the counting of votes from 5 p.m. onwards.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, leader of opposition Gulabchand Kataria, six BSP turned Congress MLAs and BJP state president Satish Poonia cast their votes.
Gehlot told the media on the occasion, “I shall again say that we are winning all three seats comfortably.”
Speaking about the BJP claims, he said, “They should take care of their house because there is a stampede over there. The way they fielded another candidate was not liked by their own MLAs. What was the point of fielding another candidate bringing an unnecessary situation of horse-trading? We would have won all three seats while the BJP could have won one seat comfortably. No one likes such an act. They had done the same thing before in the last elections also. They were defeated then and now these people will be defeated again this time.”
While the Congress was confident to win three out of these four seats, the BJP is also sure to win one seat in this poll.
The Congress has fielded Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Vasnik and Pramod Tiwari while the BJP has fielded a veteran six-time MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari
Media baron Subhash Chandra has entered the fray as an independent candidate, who is being backed by the BJP.
The Congress claims the support of 126 MLAs and says it will win all three seats.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot reached the Assembly with some ministers very early. The BSP turncoats were asked to vote early for Surjewala as hearing in the Supreme Court is expected to start on Friday on their plea, which was moved in the Supreme Court against the Rajasthan High Court order. The High Court had refused to stay the declaration of the Rajya Sabha election result till a decision was taken on a plea in connection with disqualification of the six MLAs.
