Start counting of votes immediately: BJP to Election Commission

NEW DELHI: Terming Congress' objections as "baseless", the BJP today demanded immediate counting of votes for the Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat, contending that validity of votes once put in ballot boxes cannot be questioned.

A delegation of party leaders, including Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Piyush Goyal, approached the EC after the Congress asked the poll panel to cancel votes of its two "disgruntled" MLAs for allegedly showing their votes to persons other than the authorised party representatives.

Goyal told reporters after meeting EC officials that the decision of presiding officers is final.

If neither they (Congress) nor election observers object to it when votes were cast, then the votes cannot be questioned now, he said, and demanded that "the counting of votes should be done immediately and results declared".

Prasad said the Congress was reacting out of fear of losing the poll, in which its senior leader Ahmed Patel is locked in a tight fight with a Congress rebel fielded by the BJP.