Just two days after he reportedly left mid-way a Gujarat Congress leaders’ meeting with Vice-President Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Saturday, posters emerged in Vadodara and some other places in the state stating whichever party -- the BJP or the Congress - wins in the coming Assembly elections, the Chief Minister will be Shankarsinh Vaghela — leaving the main Opposition in a quandary!
On the other hand, the BJP was left red-faced when Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel’s son Jaimin was prevented from boarding a Qatar Airways flight at the Sardar Patel Ahmedabad International Airport, on Monday, allegedly as he was “heavily drunk”. Jaimin, accompanied by wife Jhalak and daughter Vaishnavi, also had a heated argument with the officials.
Eye-witnesses said when he reached the airport, Jaimin, a land dealer, was not even able to properly walk. He was seen being taken in a wheelchair due to his inebriated condition. However, his father, Nitin Patel, denied all these happenings, claiming it was a “political conspiracy” by his detractors to bring a bad name to his family. “My son and his family were going to Greece on a vacation. Since Jaimin fell ill, the family returned home from the airport.”
But few believed the father's weak defence to shield his son and family from opprobrium in the home state of Mahatma Gandhi that officially professes prohibition as a key policy. In August 2016, Patel senior had almost claimed to be the successor of the then CM Anandiben Patel, when he gave media interviews about his plans as the possible CM, and his family and supporters went to town with celebrations — until he realised that Vijay Rupani was the one to succeed Anandiben!
The Congress Party, too, was left red-faced on Tuesday when hoardings appeared in Vadodara and some other places proclaiming Vaghela, 77, as the next CM! Put up by unidentified people under the banner of Amo, Gauravvanta Gujaratiyon (We, the Proud Gujaratis!), these posters claimed that whether the BJP or the Congress wins (after the Assembly elections), Jan, Jan Na Hit Ma Bapu Ni Sarkar (In the public interest, it will be the Government of Bapu), complete with a large picture of Shankarsinh Vaghela sitting on a decorated chair.
Interestingly, despite “Bapu” openly ruling himself out of the Chief Ministerial race, his supporters have been running a social media campaign rooting for him to take the high office.
The Congress Party, always suspicious of his RSS-BJP background, has, for some time, been trying to ignore or handle him carefully, although he is the Leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha, and the tallest and only leader with a mass base. Last month, 26 out of 57 Congress MLAs, had urged the party leadership to make him the CM candidate, something ignored by Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel, Political Secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi. This happened in the presence of Gurudas Kamath, who lost his post as AICC General Secretary in-charge soon afterwards, and in the absence of GPCC chief Bharatsinh Solanki. Factionalism in Gujarat Congress has reached extremes and the party is watching with bated breath Vaghela's next move.
Meanwhile, GPCC sources said the party’s State Executive Committee will meet on Wednesday to make preparations for the coming polls. Many changes in the office-bearers, including at the district and city-level and in different wings, are expected to be effected soon.
According to reports, on Saturday last, Vaghela had also left mid-way the meeting called by Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi in connection with poll preparations. He even skipped a group photo session of all the core committee members with Gandhi. “Bapu” was reportedly unhappy as his demand to be named as Gujarat’s CM candidate or as election-in-charge of the state were “ignored”.
Later, Solanki remarked that the party will not name anybody as the CM candidate. Even Ahmed Patel had, last week, said the party leadership will take a call on whether or not to name any leader as the CM candidate or, if at all, who should be the one.
Recently, Vaghela had claimed that the BJP was trying to poach 20 Congress MLAs in Gujarat, in what was seen as an apparent attempt to arm-twist the Congress leadership to accede to his demands. He had also not attended an important meeting called by Solanki.