Congress loses two more officials to BJP ahead of Gujarat elections; party's Punjab women's unit chief resigns as well
AHMEDABAD: Former Gujarat Congress Youth president Vishwanath Singh Vaghela, general secretary Vinay Singh Tomar, and several other youth leaders joined the BJP on Monday.
Vaghela had resigned from the Congress post on September 4, ahead of Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Gujarat.
Soon after, he was seen with BJP state president CR Patil and Union Minister Anurag Thakur in Ahmedabad.Tomar resigned on Monday.
After joining the BJP, Vaghela told the media, “After becoming the Youth Congress president, I tried to change the party but I was not allowed to work freely. A conspiracy to finish me was going on for 3-4 months to give a big post to Siddharth Sharma, the son of state party in-charge Raghu Sharma. The Youth Congress was side-lined due to his love for his son,” he said.
Tomar said,” I was associated with Congress for 20 years. Three generations of our family worked with the party. Now factionalism and nepotism are going on in the Congress.”
Punjab Pradesh Mahila Congress president Balvir Rani Sodhi has resigned from her post, citing "family circumstances".
She sent her resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday.
"Kindly relieve me from the post as I am unable to continue due to unavoidable compulsions of my family circumstances," the president of the women's wing of the Punjab Congress wrote.
However, the Congress leader assured that she will remain loyal to the party.
The copies of the letter were also sent to party leader Rahul Gandhi and All India Mahila Congress working president Netta D'Souza.
Her resignation comes ahead of the launch of the Congress party's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' across the country on Wednesday.
When asked whether she had any differences with Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Sodhi denied it.
"I have no differences with Raja Warring and have resigned only due to my family compulsions," said the women's wing chief of the party's state unit.
She also brushed aside a query about the possibility of her quitting the party too.
"I am a loyal soldier of the party and will perform any duty assigned to me by the party leadership," she stressed.
Meanwhile, the Congress will give priority to youth and women in ticket distribution for the Gujarat Assembly elections due later this year, the state party's screening committee chairman Ramesh Chennithala said on Tuesday.
He said Congress will also give a chance to "new faces" in the state polls.
Last month, the All India Congress Committee constituted a three-member screening committee to shortlist party candidates for the Gujarat polls due in December this year.
Chennithala has been appointed as the committee's chairman and Maharashtra Congress leader Shivajirao Moghe and former Delhi MLA Jai Kishan are its members.
Gujarat Congress in-charge Raghu Sharma, state party president Jagdish Thakor and Leader of Opposition Sukhram Rathva are ex-officio members of the screening committee.
On Monday evening, the screening committee members held a joint meeting with the Congress's Pradesh Election Committee, comprising 39 members including Sharma and Thakor, after Rahul Gandhi's address to the booth-level workers in Ahmedabad.
"This time, we will give priority to new faces, youth and women in ticket distribution.
Our list of candidates for the Gujarat polls this time will be an impressive one," Chennithala told reporters here ahead of another meeting of the screening committee on Tuesday.
Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said, "Yesterday's joint-meeting was more about getting familiar with each other and discussing various criteria which will be applied to finalise candidates."
On Tuesday, the screening committee will meet senior leaders and party in-charge of each Assembly seat to understand the ground situation before finalising the candidates, he said.
For the 182-member Assembly, the Congress is expected to announce its first list of candidates by September-end.
The new entrant Aam Aadmi Party has already declared 19 candidates.
The ruling BJP has not announced any candidate so far.
(With PTI Inputs)