Cong has high hopes for Gujarat elections

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi away in Delhi, the Congress believes that the upcoming elections is the best time to win Gujarat from the BJP, provided the party stands united.

Rahul Gandhi had summoned leaders from the Gujarat Congress on Saturday for a review of the political situation in the state soon after putting together a new AICC team, headed by general secretary Ashok Gehlot, the incharge of party affairs in the state.

Shankarsinh Vaghela, the Leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly, hopes to be declared the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress for the elections.

Gujarat Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki has also thrown his hat in the ring. A dominant point of view at the meeting was that the present situation in Gujarat is the best for a comeback in the state, where the party has been out of power for more than two decades.

“The BJP is in disarray. There are differences between Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and his deputy Nitin Patel. The Patidar agitation for quotas and the attacks on Dalits in Una have tuned the mood against the BJP,” a senior Gujarat Congress leader told DH.

After the meeting, Solanki made it clear that the chief ministerial candidate will be decided only after the elections.

The Congress began to put things in order by appointing Gehlot as the in-charge, in the place of Gurudas Kamat, who had told the party chief that “my heart is not in the job anymore”.

The BJP has already kicked off its campaign for the year-end elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had conducted an impressive road-show in Surat, the strong-hold of Patel community, which has been agitating for job quotas for long.

BJP president Amit Shah has set a target of winning 150 of the 182 seats in the state Assembly.