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A day after Rahul Gandhi announced the Congress will defeat the BJP across India and Shankarsinh Vaghela claimed his party targeted to win at least 108 seats out of 182 in the coming Gujarat Vidhan Sabha elections, many Muslim members from the Congress Minority Cell joined the saffron party on Tuesday.
Sources in the BJP claimed about 2,000 Muslim members of the Congress Minority Cell deserted it to join the ruling party. But Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) spokesman Manish Doshi told BusinessLine this was just a BJP tactic to demoralise the main Opposition party workers. “No one has joined the BJP from the Congress.”
Reports said the Muslims joined the BJP at its first Minority Cell sammelan held at Dahegam in Gandhinagar district. Those who joined the BJP included two Muslim sarpanches — Idris Patel of Paguthan and Rafiq Ahmed Bhagat of Kothi — from villages next to Piraman, home village of Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel, who is Political Secretary to Sonia Gandhi, Congress President. The sarpanchs accused the Congress of using the Muslims and said they joined the BJP because of their “faith” in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies.
The Muslims joined the BJP in the presence of Gujarat BJP chief Jitu Vaghani and State BJP Minority Cell President Mehboob Ali Chishti (Bawa). According to Chishti, the BJP was now targeting all the 17 Assembly seats won by the Congress due to the presence of decisive Muslim votes.
Meanwhile, in Surat, about 200 Patidars, claiming to be members of the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), joined the BJP at an event. But the SPG said none of its members did so. Ever since the Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) launched a pro-quota agitation in July 2015, the Patidars had turned into a strong anti-BJP platform for a few months. PAAS and SPG have been the main spearheads of this agitation.
On Monday, prior to Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Dediapada in Narmada district, leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly Shankarsinh Vaghela had announced the party’s target of winning at least 108 Assembly seats vis-à-vis the BJP’s target of 150-plus seats.
The Gujarat Assembly will meet in a special session on May 9 to pass the GST bill. Reports suggest that the Congress might appoint its MLA Paresh Dhanani to succeed Vaghela as the new Leader of the Opposition, with just about six months to ago before the Assembly polls. Dhanani is a senior Patidar leader. Vaghela is likely to be asked to head the Congress Party’s election campaign.
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