Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel retained his Rajya Sabha seat from Gujarat in a nail-biting election on Tuesday.
The Congress leader, who announced his victory on Twitter with ‘Satyamev Jayate’ (Truth shall prevail), was congratulated by his party immediately, which after a long time, finally has a reason to celebrate.
Patel’s victory could very well have ended in defeat had the Election Commission not accepted the Congress’s claim that votes cast by its two rebel lawmakers should be cancelled because they had shown their ballot paper to the BJP chief Amit Shah.
176 legislators of the Gujarat assembly voted on Tuesday. With the two votes being declared invalid and the total valid votes down to at least 174, each candidate needed 44 votes to win, instead of the earlier 45.
Patel managed an exact 44 votes – the figure that was needed to win the cliffhanger.
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