A day after stirring a hornets’ nest by ‘unfollowing’ his party’s top leaders’ social media handle, former Gujarat Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela on Monday said that he wanted to convey a strong message that he didn’t want to be named as Chief Ministerial candidate for his party.
Vaghela not only unfollowed AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi on his Twitter handle, but he also decided to unfollow everyone from social media handles. In fact he had unfollowed 30 Twitter handles, including those of AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s political advisor Ahmed Patel, Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and others apart from Rahul. He also skipped party’s IT cell meet in the State capital Gandhinagar.
“I am not going to follow anyone. I instructed people in my political office to remove all from Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms. I am not doing anything to pressurise anyone about anything,” said the veteran politician, adding that he has never done any such thing in his political career.
He further said that the party should have announced the list of its candidates a year in advance to counter ruling BJP effectively.
Replying to a query on whether he was in the race for the Chief Ministerial candidate’s race, the Congress leader quickly said it was the media which interpreted his statements conveniently. Vaghela also cleared the speculation on him joining BJP by saying that during budget session of the Assembly, Amit Shah and Chief Minister Rupani came to meet him at his office, but it was just a courtesy meeting. “I never made any move to join BJP or said on it. Did IIJ” he quipped.