Gujarat: BJP gives tickets to five Congress turncoats ahead of bypolls

The Gujarat BJP on Sunday declared the names of its seven candidates for the upcoming Assembly bypolls, out of which five were ex-Congress MLAs who had resigned in the run-up to Rajya Sabha polls earlier this year.

The BJP is yet to decide the name of its eighth candidate, while the Congress hasn't announced the names. The voting for bypolls to eight Assembly seats would be held on November 3.

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According to the list declared by BJP, Pradyumansinh Jadeja, J V Kakadiya, Akshay Patel, Jitu Chaudhry, and Brijesh Merja have been nominated as candidates for Abdasa, Dhari, Karjan, Kaprada and Morbi assembly seats. They all are among the eight Congress MLAs who resigned earlier this year and later joined the BJP.

They had won those seats as Congress candidates in 2017 Assembly polls. The name for the eighth seat of Limbdi is yet to be declared.

On the other hand, the state Congress is yet to finalise the names of its candidates.

Sources said that the party is treading the path cautiously in view of an internal rift over the ticket distribution. However, even in the BJP, a group of leaders, including many seniors, are upset with the tickets going to the Congress turncoats.

"Although we knew about it, we are not very happy with the decision. There are a number of hard working grass-root workers and senior leaders who have been ignored. I don't think the booth level workers will be giving their 100%. This is a bad precedent," said a BJP worker. Hours after the names were declared, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani congratulated the candidates on Twitter where he said, "The hard work of soldier-like dedication of workers and leader of BJP will make these candidates winner."

On the other hand, the outcome of the polls is also going to be an acid test for Gujarat Congress' working president Hardik Patel and state BJP chief C R Patil as it is the first election for them after taking over the posts.

It is believed that the BJP is at backfoot due to charges of "horse trading" and it will be hard for the Congress turncoats to convince voters to choose them again on BJP tickets. While the Assembly election is due in 2022, the result of the bypolls will impact the upcoming local civic body polls, which is likely to be held by the end of the year.