Gandhinagar:

Rejecting the speculations about the possibility of former Chief Minister Shankersinh Vaghela’s contesting Rajyasabha polls as an independent candidate as a contender for one of the three seats from Gujarat are going to polls on August 8, his office here today said that he won’t put forth his candidature for the upper house election.

Vaghela had announced to resign from Congress on July 21 and had tendered his resignation from the post of Leader of opposition to party president Sonia Gandhi two days ago. He had said that he would resign from the Kapadvanj assembly seat after August 8, the day or Rajyasabha poll.

Speculations were also on about the possibility of his filing nomination for the Rajyasabha polls to teach Congress a lesson, however his media coordinator Nikhil Desai today categorically said that Bapu (Vaghela) won’t go for it.

‘There was not even a remote possibility of it. It is official version of our office he is not going to contest,’ he said.

In fact the speculation about Vaghela’s candidature was fueled by his resignation from Congress soon after the episode of cross-voting by 11 party MLA’s in presidential polls. It was being said that Vaghela might obstruct Congress from winning one of the three seats.

The three seats are of Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani (BJP), Dilip Pandya (BJP) and Ahmed Patel (Congress, Political Advisor to Sonia Gandhi) whose terms were to expire on August 18.

Nomination period for the polls were on with issue of notification on July 21 and would continue till the last date of July 28.

The counting of votes would be done on after the election on August 8 ie the same day.

DeshGujarat