The Congress will repeat all its existing MlAs in the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly polls scheduled for December this year, Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki told the reporters at Ahmedabad airport on his return from Delhi after having an important meeting with All India Congress Committee – AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
‘’By and large all sitting MlAs would be repeated. Most of them have been instructed to initiate preparation to contest polls from their respective constituencies,’ said Solanki, adding that he had meeting with Gandhi at length over allocation of tickets for 182 assembly constituencies.
Solanki further said that he discussed strategies with senior leaders of Congress including AICC vice president to get 2/3 majority in the upcoming assembly polls. He however didn’t divulge any detail on whether the sitting MlAs would contest upcoming elections from the same constituencies of some of them might be told to change.
According to him Gujarat congress in-charge and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot would form committees at district level and appoint their office-bearers to give momentum to select candidates for the remaining 115 candidates.
last week Solanki indirectly indicated that he is not in the race for Chief Ministerial candidate for his party by announcing that he would not contest in the assembly election. He however maintained that as per congress party’s tradition, elected Members of legislative Assembly would decide their leader once the party would emerge victorious with clear majority.
Meanwhile sitting congress MlA from Rajkot East assembly constituency Indranil Rajguru reiterated that he request to change constituency was accepted by the party high command and now he would contest from Rajkot West constituency against Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
Reacting on Solanki’s remarks over repeating his party’s MlAs, Gujarat BJP spokesman Bharat Pandya said that the announcement of Gujarat congress president was nothing but his fear of defeat as even before his party’s parliamentary board meeting he hurriedly declared to repeat all sitting MlAs.
It is worth mentioning that the congress party is out of power for almost two and half decades in Gujarat. In fact after Narendra Modi became Chief Minister in October 2001, congress not only reduced in the state assembly but also in the local governments’ elections over the one and half decades. Now Modi is away from Gujarat post 2014 lok Sabha polls couple with ongoing pro-quota Patidar agitation, issue of Dalit youth flogging in Saurashtra region as well as OBC leader’s agitation over unemployment, congress leaders in Gujarat are hopeful that their party has fair chance to return in power in the Prime Minister’s home-state.