Senior Gujarat Congress leader Shankarsinh Vaghela on Monday repeated his stance that he was not in the race for the chief minister’s post and was not contemplating joining the BJP.
“It has been my insistence that the party should have announced the list of its candidates a year in advance...You are planning to fight the BJP that is in power in the state and at the Centre...You may not announce CM’s candidate but by delaying announcement of candidates, you are creating disillusionment among partymen,” Vaghela told the media.
On Sunday, Vaghela created a political flutter by “unfollowing” 30 Twitter handles, including those of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, political adviser to Sonia Gandhi Ahmed Patel and state party chief Bharatsinh Solanki. He also skipped the party’s IT Cell meet.
Vaghela said that he had “unfollowed” everyone and removed all the negative tweets, including those criticising the BJP, primarily to clear misunderstandings. “I am not doing anything to pressurise anyone about anything…Bargaining, blackmailing is not my style”.
Vaghela, also the leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly, said that many of those he was following were fuelling “misunderstandings” by putting up posts like “Bapu for CM”, prompting him to stay away from all social media platforms.
Published 15 May 2017, 20:03 IST