Congress, BJP spar over defection bid in Gujarat

A war of words erupted between the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress on Monday after a latter’s MLA “offered” Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel the post of chief minister if he joined the Congress with at least 15 of his party colleagues. This comes a day after Patel’s public statement during a religious function that “I am standing alone and everyone is against me...”

This statement is said to have prompted the Congress MLA Virjibhai Thummar from Lathi constituency in Amreli district to “offer” Patel the top post in the ongoing Assembly session.

This led to an intense war of words between the two parties. State BJP president Jitu Vaghani shot back, “Congress is out of power for more than 26 years and such statement shows how greedy it is to come back to power.

"Our leader and Deputy Chief Minister Nitinbhai Patel doesn’t need suggestions from the Congress.” But this is not the first time that Patel’s statements have left the BJP fending for itself.

After the BJP came back to power in 2017 under the leadership of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, their differences became public when Patel was refused a “prestigious portfolio”.After a drama, Patel was made the finance minister following the intervention of senior BJP leaders in Delhi.

Recently, Patel publicly targeted bureaucrats for not listening to elected representatives of the public.

The “offer” to Nitin Patel from Congress comes ahead of Rajya Sabha elections for four seats. There is speculation of the BJP once again poaching Congress MLAs to win back the three seats it holds.

Out of a total of 182 assembly seats, BJP has 103 seats while the Congress has 73 MLAs. Congress sources said that the party can win two seats
provided it keeps its flock together.