I have never seen such a battle over a single Rajya Sabha seat in my entire professional career. The manner in which Congress MLAs were first herded to a resort in Karnataka, and then confined to a resort in Gujarat, and later brought in a bus to Gandhinagar for polling, makes people wonder whether the future of a government was at stake. Even during polling, both parties, BJP and Congress, made it an issue of prestige, and when the counting was to begin, Congress demanded disqualification of two votes, because these two MLAs had flashed their ballots towards BJP leaders sitting in the room. And then started the trips to the Election Commission. Senior legal luminaries, including Arun Jaitley and P. Chidambaram,  from both parties along with other party leaders, went to the Election Commission thrice in succession. The Election Commission made a late night decision disqualifying both the votes paving the way for Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s victory. Elections are part of life of any political leader, but the manner in which both parties jostled for a single seat does not send the right message to the people in the 70th year of India’s independence. It could have been avoided.

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