Despite in disarray following three back to back defeats in the Assembly elections, Gujarat Congress leaders seem to have not learnt lessons. The State unit of the oldest political party in the country is divided into multiple factions.
In the recently concluded party executive meet, the factionalism surfaced in public too as a scene was created when supporters of a minority leader shouted slogans against Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhvadia.
Modhvadia remarked over lower voting of minorities in recent by-elections and also expressed worry on increasing acceptability of the Gujarat BJP in minority community. When the Congress president questioned the work done by the party’s minority cell, supporters of minority cell president Vazir Khan stand up and started shouting slogans against him.
Referring to the last Assembly elections in which Modhvadia and leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly Shaktisinh Gohil were defeated with huge margins, a leader in the Youth Congress said that the party required a leader with mass appeal. “Our leaders were not able to secure victory in their own hometowns, how can we expect them to divert people from across the State towards the Congress,” he added.
Sources in the party say that in Gujarat the party has too many leaders and a very few workers. There is complete lack of discipline and co-ordination amongst senior leaders, especially at a time when Rahul Gandhi takes personal interest to strengthen the Congress in Gujarat to counter BJP’s campaign committee chief Narendra Modi, says a veteran Congress leader.
“Rahul Gandhi had explicitly given instruction to give prominence to women. Despite the fact, when names of district observers were announced, representation of females was minimal. Discontent was visible amongst female workers too,” he added.
Senior leaders Siddharth Patel and Shaktisinh Gohil were also unhappy over the appointment of district observers, said a source adding that both the leaders in spite of repeated invitations to address new observers didn’t speak anything.
Though former Gujarat Chief Minister Shankersinh Vaghela has been made leader of Opposition in the Assembly, considering his RSS background, many in the Congress are not accepting him as their leader. “Vaghela is getting some or other posts within party and even Central Ministry, just because of his personal might and not as senior Congress leader,” said an octogenarian Congress worker, who in the past served in various positions in the party organisation.
Interestingly, of the 60-odd Congress MlAs in Gujarat, nearly 20 per cent are of Vaghela camp (popularly known as ‘Bapu’). They migrated in the Congress when Vaghela’s political outfit Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP) merged with the Congress. “Even over a decade after that political merger, we have not been considered as original Congressmen,” said an MlA belonging to Bapu’s camp.
Already Koli leader Kuvarji Bavalia and others belonging to the community in the Saurashtra region are sitting on fence. According to them, Kolis did not get adequate representations in allocation of tickets during previous Assembly and lok Sabha elections. Even at the time of appointments of officer-bearers within the party, Kolis were ignored, said a Koli leader from the Saurashtra region.