Minister of state for home Pradipsinh Jadeja on Wednesday deposed before the Gujarat High Court as a witness of BJP leader Balvantsinh Rajput who has challenged the Rajya Sabha poll victory of Congress leader Ahmed Patel. He was cross-examined by Patel's lawyers for over 3 hours before the single-judge bench of Justice Bela Trivedi, which is conducting the trial in the case.
The minister submitted to the court in an affidavit that when former Jamnagar (rural) MLA Raghavji Patel was showing his ballot to Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, the latter got up from the chair and tried to snatch it from Raghavji. Jadeja submitted that Raghavji was stunned with Gohil's behaviour and immediately put his vote in the ballot box. Notably, Raghavji during his deposition before the High Court as a witness of Rajput in the case had made the same submission.
Answering the questions asked by Ahmed Patel's lawyers, the minister said that Congress legislators Raghavji Patel and Bholabhai did not show their votes to anyone except Gohil; and Mitesh Garasiya showed his vote to Gohil and Arjun Modhwadia. This was opposed by BJP's Shankar Chaudhary. Similarly, the minister said that Shailesh Parmar had shown his vote to several others, which was opposed by Rajput. However, the election officer did not entertain their objections as a result of which I had raised an objection against the same in writing, the minister said.
When he was questioned about his knowledge on Rajya Sabha elections and how the counting of votes is done, the minister said that the counting of votes in Rajya Sabha is a complicated process and he is not aware of the same, except for the fact that the legislators are supposed to vote in the order of their preference for the candidates contesting the poll.
The minister also said he was a polling agent during the election and the entire election proceeding was videographed by the election commission. He also said that Congress MLAs who had left the party and joined BJP were given election tickets based on their popularity and geography of the constituency, and the decisions in this regard were taken by the parliamentary board.
