Shankersinh Vaghela holds talks with senior Congress leaders of Gujarat

While the principal opposition party in Gujarat is looking forward to a change in leadership, clamour is rising for the return of the master of political acrobat, Shankersinh Vaghela, to the Congress fold.

Vaghela reportedly had multiple meetings with former Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and the final decision on taking him back is left with the party high command.

While Vaghela’s overtures are more of his attempts to retain his relevance in the state polity, for the Congress in Gujarat, a void in leadership is telling. The pandemic has cost the party its tallest leader in the state, Ahmed Patel, as well as young state in charge Rajiv Satav.

Leader of opposition Paresh Dhanani and state president Amit Chavda have tendered their resignations after the drubbing of the party in civic polls, which are often touted as the ‘mini assembly polls’, earlier this year. The Congress has been out of power in the state since the mid-nineties and by far no leader has managed to galvanise the Gujarati electorate significantly enough to hurt the BJP’s electoral strength in the state.

While the BJP was reduced to double digits in the 182-seat Gujarat assembly for the first time since then in 2017, the reason was largely the disenchantment among the Patel voters in the aftermath of the agitation in 2015. The Congress that benefitted from the agitation in 2017, however, allowed the momentum to fizzle out over the next couple of years and suffered defeats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.