The election to three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat has turned into a high-stake battle. Where BJP has fielded party chief Amit Shah, Union minister Smriti Irani and Balwantsinh Rajput for the three seats in Gujarat, Congress leader Ahmed Patel is contesting against Rajput.

The polling for the Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat will take place on Tuesday and each candidate needs 45 first-preference votes to enter the upper house.

A candidate needs the support of 45 legislators to win straightaway. The 182-seat Gujarat assembly was reduced to 176 after six Congress legislators quit recently. Three of them  joined the BJP.

The Saffron party is confident of winning all the three seats and after loosing three of its MLAs, Patel will now need at least 46 votes of the 51 Congress MLAs to win.

The Congress is wary of cross-voting.
 

"If anyone cross-votes tomorrow, they will face action from party or even disqualification," Patel, confidence that he will win Tuesday's poll and will return for a sixth term, said a day ahead of the polling.

"I have full confidence in my victory tomorrow despite the BJP's attempts and the numbers will surprise everyone. Besides the 44 Congress legislators, we have the support of Janata Dal-United, Nationalist Congress Party and Shankersinh Vaghela," Ahmed Patel said.

All the 44 Gujarat Congress legislators, who were camping at a private resort near Bengaluru for 10 days, returned to Ahmedabad on Monday morning.

They were shifted to a resort on the outskirts of the city fearing poaching by the BJP ahead of today's Rajya Sabha election.