After taking rein of Gujarat Congress earlier this year, former Union Minister of State for Drinking Water and Sanitation Bharatsinh Solanki and his team have decided to change State headquarter ahead of polls of over 200 local bodies including Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
In fact the oldest political party is shifting from its own building -- Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan -- situated at buzzing Ashram Road to a rental premise located at posh Memnagar area of Ahmedabad on Saturday. The reason: Sonia Gandhi-led party has not won major elections in the State for almost two decades.
Gujarat Congress is functioning at the current location since 1987. In the year 2003, the original structure which was a bungalow, was demolished and a new multi-storey building came up. In the year 2006, the construction and interior work of the building completed and the building was christened after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
“By this period, Congress was gradually reduced not only in Gujarat assembly but local bodies and co-operative sector also. In 1987 Congress was in power and Amarsinh Chaudhary was Chief Minster,” said party leaders. According to them the new four-storey building is vaastu-enabled and hopefully it would change the political future of the party.
Since the formation of the State in 1960 upto 1995 Gujarat had only Congress Chief Ministers barring for eight years of Janata Party rule. It was in 1995 when table turned in favour of BJP as under the leadership of Keshubhai Patel BJP formed Government with clear majority and since then Congress is away from power and reduced to mere 58 MlAs today in 182-member Gujarat Assembly. There was a time, Congress had strength of 149 members in Gujarat assembly under the leadership of Madhavsinh Solanki, father of current Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki.
Next month polls of 253 municipalities, 208 tehsil panchayats, 26 district panchayats and six municipal corporations including Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar are to be held and in the post Patel quota stir and in the absence of Narendra Modi, Gujarat Congress leaders are hoping to change the fortune for the party. According to sources, Party leaders have already started working on probable candidates for the upcoming polls.
Even BJP had shifted its State headquarter from Khanpur area of Ahmeabad to Koba on the outskirts of Gandhinagar ahead of the lok Shabh elections. However, in the case of BJP the reason was different. As the Khanpur office was too small and had parking problems there, the saffron party decided to construct new swanky office.