AHMEDABAD: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who held a press conference in Jaipur on Friday, blamed that if the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had not been “put up as a proxy to target” his party, they would have won the recently concluded Gujarat assembly elections. But the internal battle of Gujarat Congress leaders for opposition leaders' posts tells a different story.
Before the session of the Gujarat Assembly on 20th December, there is a large-scale tug-of-war going on in the Gujarat Congress to decide the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. Importantly, more than 3 congress leaders blamed the chief of the Gujarat Congress for their defeat.
A Congress leader on the condition of anonymity said "On one hand, the discussions of defeat in the Congress are going on in the state office, on the other hand, Congress leaders C.J. Chavda, Shailesh Parmar, and four to five other MLAs who have won, are lobbying up to Delhi High Command to make them a leader of the opposition (LOP),”
“Importantly, every leader who lobbied for the Leader of the Opposition from the state to the Delhi level emphasized the ill effects if another leader was made the Leader of the Opposition. Each and every leader are Complaining about the opposite leader,” he further said
Besides cutthroat competition for Lop, Many Gujarat Congress leaders complained about the congress president and leaders for their defeat, former MLA Raghu Desai, who lost the Assembly polls from Ranadharpur in Patan district, has asked the central leadership to suspend state unit president Jagdish Thakor, alleging his "close associates" had worked against the party.
Desai also wrote a letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge saying “Some party leaders had worked against the interest of the party and also to defeat me in the election. Some of them were close associates of Jagdish Thakor. As the GPCC president, he never controlled such people and played an important role
in defeating me," alleged Desai.
Congress' Lone Muslim MLA from Ahmedbad’s Jamal Pur Khadia Assembly Blamed Rahul Gandhi and Delhi leadership for their defeat. Talking to Local Media, MLA Imran Khedawala said, “Rahul Gandhi was busy with ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra,’ which was to be organized a year ago. It would be best if you asked in Delhi why this Yatra did not go through Gujarat. The party should have focused on Gujarat. The way BJP landed its national leaders here, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi's rally should have been held here,”
Surat Congress president Hasmukh Desai also blamed State leadership, saying “Gujarat in charge Dr. Raghu Sharma, State President Jagdish Thakor, AICC Co-Incharge - South Zone BM Sandeep did not co-ordinate with the Surat City President in the election operations, even after such a bad defeat of Congress,
the leaders are throwing mud at each other for the position of LOP.”
Importantly, on one side where congress leaders are fighting for LOP Post, some senior leaders are claiming that there is no codified rule in the Gujarat Assembly on granting the status of LoP, but a norm is being followed assembly since 1960, according to which any party that gets a minimum of 10 per cent of
the total seats, gets recognised as an opposition party. The Congress is one short of the 10% mark, at 18 seats, it is left to the Speaker whether to grant the status to the largest opposition party or not.