Ahead of Rahul Gandhi's visit, president of Gujarat Youth Congress resigns

Gujarat Youth Congress president alleged that he had to collect Rs 1.70 crore for the party after which he was given the post

Barely a day before former Congress president Rahul Gandhi's visit to launch the party's campaign for upcoming Assembly polls, the party suffered yet another embarrassment with the Youth Congress president of the state unit, Vishwanath Vaghela, resigned from the post as well as party's primary membership.

Hours later, Congress replaced Vaghela with Harpalsinh Chudasama as the new president. Chudasma was the national general secretary of the Youth Congress. "We were expecting Vaghela's resignation. He wanted personal benefits instead of fighting for the youth of Gujarat and therefore he resigned," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi told DH.

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Rahul Gandhi will be attending the "Parivartan Sankalp Sammelan" of booth-level workers at Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad on Monday. In his resignation letter, Vaghela blamed groupism in Congress as one of the reasons behind his exit. He has alleged in his scathing resignation letter that he had to pay money for his post.

He alleged that he had to collect Rs 1.70 crore for the party after which he was given the post. However, the party officials denied the allegations. A senior party leader said, "He is going to join the BJP and that's why he has targeted Rahul Gandhi and the entire Congress leadership 24 hours before Rahul Gandhi's visit."

While Congress has played it down, this development comes as a major embarrassment at a time when the party is looking for momentum to kick start its poll campaign for the Assembly polls barely three months from now. Earlier this year, Congress lost Patidar leader and former state working president Hardik Patel and three-time tribal MLA from Khedbrahma Ashwin Kotwal to BJP.

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Recently, two other party leaders including former Gujarat minister Naresh Raval and former Rajya Sabha MP Raju Parmar left the party and joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the presence of state president C R Patil. As a matter of fact, after giving a tough fight to BJP in the 2017 Assembly polls, Congress has lost nearly a dozen MLAs to BJP.

Due to the exodus and subsequent defeats in by-polls, the party's tally in the Assembly was reduced to 64 from 77 seats that it had won in 2017. The list also includes popular OBC leader Alpesh Thakor who is now with the BJP. As the opposition party continues to lose its ground, Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party is said to be gaining ground with his promises of free electricity, monthly allowances, guaranteed jobs, and better schools, among others.