The Gujarat unit of the Aam Aadmi Party witnessed two jolts today when one of its assembly by-poll candidates was found "missing" while a former AAP candidate joined Congress with hundreds of his supporters.
"Kanakrai Kanani, AAP's candidate from Visavadar assembly seat of Junagadh district, is missing since this morning," AAP's spokesperson Harshil Nayak told PTI today.
Yesterday AAP replaced Dhirubhai Bhakhar with Kanakrai Kanani for the Visavadar assembly seat. Today was the last day of filing nomination forms for seven assembly by-polls.
"We are inquiring about his whereabouts, but we could not trace him because his cellphone has been switced off," Nayak said.
Incidentally, today is the last day of filing nomination papers and since the AAP candidate has not filed his nomination, the assembly election would remain a two-party affair between the BJP and the Congress.
Since the AAP candidate is out of the fray now, Congress candidate Harshad Ribadiya is set to take on BJP's candidate and former Gujarat chief minister Keshu Patel's son, Bharat Patel, from the Visavadar seat.
"Aam Aadmi party's ideology is to support the right person with a clean image, but for the past few days, AAP has been diverting from its goals," former AAP candidate Savajraj Sodha told PTI.
"I have decided to extend my support to Congress candidate Shaktisinh Gohil," Sodha said, adding that he has joined the Congress with 500 of his supporters.
Sodha has also alleged that AAP gave him a ticket to polarise Kshatriya community votes in the assembly by-polls.
"Sodha told us about his difficulties to contest elections. So we have replaced him," AAP's state convener Sukhdev Patel told PTI today.