Assembly bypolls: Congress appoints senior leaders as incharge for 8 seats in Gujarat

The by-elections for the eight vacant seats are expected to be held between September and October year.The seats fell vacant following the resignation of Congress MLAs.

Even as the Gujarat Congress alleged the ruling BJP of poaching its MLAs, Congress managed to secure one out of the four Rajya Sabha seats in the recently held elections with Shaktisinh Gohil as winning candidate.

According to GPCC officials, the senior leaders have been assigned the task of touching base with the constituencies again and look for desirable candidates.

All eight senior leaders will be in direct touch with Rajeev Satav, Rajya Sabha MP and Gujarat Congress incharge and Amit Chavda, president of GPCC. The leaders will not only connect with the booth level workers to check the situation on ground but also keep caste dynamics in mind as out of eight seats, two of Dang and Kaprada in Valsad are reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates and Gadhda in Botad reserved for Scheduled Caste community.

“Although the dates of by elections have not been announced and list of candidates will be released much later, we have already started our preparations in these eight constituencies where we will get in constant touch with the frontal organisations associated with Congress along with booth-level committees and administrative rings. We will also have to check the performance of workers in these areas, their popularity among masses, caste and geography dynamics and a sense of the ground reality to look for favourable candidates. The incharge leaders will be in direct touch with Rajeev Satav and Amit Chavda,” said an official of GPCC.

The Gujarat Congress said that for the upcoming by elections, the party intends to highlight the issues of inflation, farmers’ crisis and alleged failure of BJP-led state government during Covid-19 pandemic.

“The BJP has put one MLA each as incharge executive of each seat during the time of elections but we didn’t see them doing the same for Covid-19 pandemic. So we want to ask them whether their priority is to win only elections and not the health and welfare of the people of Gujarat… We will also raise the issue of rising prices of diesel and petrol and an overall inflation… The BJP this time will also have to manage the inner fights as the turncoats from our party who have joined BJP now will not be accepted that easily by the BJP loyalists,” said Jairajsinh Parmar, spokesperson, GPCC.