The Congress is expected to field Narendra Rawat, chief of the Vadodara unit of the party, from the city in the Lok Sabha by-election on September 13, necessitated due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacating the seat he won by a margin of 5.7 lakh votes.
“We are fielding Narendra Rawat from Vadodara,” said a senior Congress leader. Rawat was the original choice of the Congress to contest from the constituency before he was replaced by a “stronger candidate”—AICC general secretary Madhusudan Mistry—when Modi decided to contest from the city. It is learnt that Rawat had developed cold feet after Modi’s candidature was announced from Vadodara, forcing the Congress to field Mistry.
On the back of a month-long campaign, Mistry garnered more than 2.5 lakh votes against Modi, and takes pride in “preventing” Modi from setting a record for the highest victory margin ever in the Lok Sabha elections. Modi had contested from the Varanasi and Vadodara Lok Sabha seats.
Published 25 August 2014, 20:16 IST