The Supreme Court will tomorrow (June 19) hear a petition by the Congress to hold simultaneous elections to two Rajya Sabha seats that were vacated by BJP chief Amit Shah and Smriti Irani after they moved to the Lok Sabha.
The Election Commission has fixed July 5 for the Rajya Sabha by-elections to the two seats. The petition was filed by the Leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat assembly, Pareshbhai Dhanani.
Opposing the separate polls, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said holding the elections for the two seats separately would be against the rules. “This would be a mockery of our constitutional ethos. It would be completely contrary to conventions. Whenever there are two seats of a state going vacant, you have elections together. It is obvious to everybody that the purpose of that is to ensure there is a fair exercise of franchise of each MLA,” Singhvi said last week.
ALSO READ: SC refuses to pass urgent orders on doctors’ safety
However, rubbishing the allegation, the BJP said the “Congress has become a lie-spreading machine”. “They are misleading the people. By-polls for Rajya Sabha always takes place separately,” a BJP leader said last week.
Amit Shah’s Rajya Sabha seat was declared vacant after he won his first Lok Sabha election from Gandhinagar in Gujarat. Whereas, Smriti Irani’s seat was notified vacant as she won the Amethi Lok Sabha seat defeating Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
The BJP has 100 legislators in the Gujarat assembly and the Congress has 71.
Legislators vote in Rajya Sabha elections in what is called proportional representation with the single transferable vote system. Each lawmaker’s vote is counted only once. The lawmakers list their order of preference for each candidate. The candidate that is the first choice for more voters, wins.