The Congress party in Gujarat is in complete disarray. Indiscipline surfaced within the party during a recent meeting of Vadodara City Congress Working Committee meeting as a group of party workers shouted slogans against their national leader Rahul Gandhi and demanded his ouster from the party.
They also termed senior Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi for party’s debacle, nationally as well as in Gujarat that too in presence of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Arjun Modhwadia.
Since the last two years, the grand old party is continuously losing one after other elections ranging from District Panchayat, Assembly bypolls, Municipalities, Municipal Corporations and lok Sabha. latest was Junagadh Municipal Corporation on Tuesday after humiliating defeat in lok Sabha elections.
As the meeting initiated on Tuesday, a group of Congress workers started shouting slogans against the All India Congress Committee (AICC) vice-president Rahul Gandhi and demanded to kick him out of the party.
In this meeting, a resolution was passed to start agitation against ‘corruption in the BJP Government’. However, the meeting was full of action as local leaders made accusation against each other and at one point Modhwadia had to intervene and threaten that he would slap show-cause notices to those trying to obstruct meeting.
Apart from Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader in Vadodara accused senior Congress leaders in State for the party’s constant poor performance. A few workers also raised the issue of local leadership in the city at a time when by-election of Vadodara lok Sabha constituency is due in near future.
“We are worried about groupism within the party. If such situation will prevail, it would be difficult for the party to perform well in the upcoming bypolls of nine Assembly seats and one lok Sabha seat (Vadodara) in the State,” said a senior Congress leader requesting anonymity.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi fought election from Vadodara apart from Varanasi parliamentary constituency in the last lok Sabha election. As Modi won from both the constituency, he decided to remain a Member of Parliament from the holy city of Varanasi and vacated Vadodara seat. The Congress had put AICC general secretary and Rahul Gandhi’s confidant Madhusudan Mistry against Modi, but he was defeated with mammoth margin of more than 5.70 lakh votes.