Guj Cong says all 57 sitting MLAs will contest, puts Vaghela on backfoot

The main opposition party in Gujarat, Congress on Tuesday said that it would repeat all the 57 sitting legislators as its candidates for the forthcoming Assembly polls.

“We are going to repeat all the sitting Congress party legislators as they are going to again win this time,” Bharatsinh Solanki, president, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, said. He said this after arriving in the city after meeting Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and senior Congress leaders in New Delhi. “We had a discussion on how Congress bags two-thirds seats in the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state.”

The state of Gujarat is due for polls to 182—seat Legislative Assembly by the end of this year. While the ruling BJP is claiming to target 150 seats, Congress with its slogan “Congress is coming” is hoping to win two-thirds of the seat and come back to power in the state after a gap of over two decades.

Interestingly, the announcement comes from the state Congress chief solo, without the presence of the leader of the Opposition and party stalwart Shankarsinh Vaghela. There has been a buzz in the political circles that Vaghela has been unhappy with party affairs and may be on verge of jumping ship to BJP with few legislators. However, with Congress announcing that all the sitting legislators, including Vaghela and his son Mahendrasinh, officially announced to be party candidates, it could put spanner in Vaghela’s plans for a while.

“This sees Vaghela isolated for now. He was expected to announce his candidature to Rajya Sabha and put spanner in the re-election of Sonia Gandhi’s political advisor Ahmed Patel. With this, Vaghela will have to think out of the box,” a senior Congress leader said.

Vaghela remained tight-lipped on the developments within the party. Solanki on his part said that the party would announce a list of another 65 seats by the end of June. “I have shared final lists of people who would head various panels on elections in the state. We are also going to announce them shortly,” he said.