Ahmedabad: Shankersinh Vaghela may have already inflicted damage on the Congress by prodding his loyalist MLAs to cross-vote in the recent presidential elections. Results indicated that up to 11 Congress MLAs may have voted for the NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind.Out of the 57 Congress votes, UPA's Meira Kumar got only 49 and this probably includes two from the NCP and one from the BJP. In the 182-strong state assembly, though the BJP has a strength of 121, its candidate for president got 132 votes. JD(U) MLA Chottu Vasava abstained and BJP rebel Nalin Kotadiya openly declared that he had voted for Meira Kumar.Among prime suspects who may have cross-voted for the BJP are Vaghela himself, his son Mahendrasinh and close relative, Balwantsinh Rajput. There are at least a dozen Congress MLAs who are die-hard loyalists of Vaghela and may attend his birthday bash on Friday where, according to reports, he will officially part ways with the Congress.When asked about the cross-voting, Vaghela told the media: "I have 100% voted for Meira Kumar. Cross-voting from Congress may have happened but I have no idea. It is difficult to determine who did it."Bharatsinh Solanki, state Congress president, said: "It is very unfortunate that Congress and UPA's presidential candidate got less votes than our total strength. We will go into the details and shortly take appropriate action after taking guidance from the party high command. The incident is indicative of likely political developments."Chief minister Vijay Rupani told TOI: "Our presidential nominee got 132 votes against our 121 MLAs. Eleven Congress MLAs have voted for us due to infighting in that party. We never asked them to vote for our candidate but they did. This is a clear sign of their growing trust in PM Narendrabhai's leadership. In the coming days, Congress will face a major crisis as the party has lost confidence of not just people but also of their own party members."

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