Gujarat Cong leaders puzzled as Vaghela calls supporters’ meet

Even as the Gujarat Congress prepares to launch an agitation on Friday to raise, among others, the farmers’ and Patidars’ issues, senior party leader Shankersinh Vaghela startled his colleaugues by inviting a meeting of his followers on Thursday.

The 77-year-old invited a meeting of his flock — “social leaders”, as his supporters put it — at his residence outside Gandhinagar on Thursday evening for ‘unspecified reasons’. On Wednesday, he had denied that he had served an ‘ultimatum’ to the party high command to replace Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki by Thursday.

Rumour has been rife that Vaghela is considering a return to the BJP, which he had quit in 1996. He subsequently joined the Congress fold in 1998.

There’s little peace in the Gujarat unit of the BJP either. The family of Ketan Patel — who had demanded a CBI inquiry into his alleged custodial deathin Mehsana district last week — refused to take his body, even after the postmortem.

Many Patidars are already sitting on dharna across the northern districts of the State, which has witnessed violence and road blockades. Several Patidar youths got their heads tonsured to mark their protest. While no senior BJP leader had visited the aggrieved family, Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot, Vaghela and Solanki, besides others, did so.

Reports suggested that if the Patel family continues with its stance, the police could cremate the youth’s body. This has angered the Patidar community further.

However, the community seemed divided on the issue. Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti convener Hardik Patel urged it to not politicise Ketan’s death. His opponents in the Sardar Patel Group, however, are agitating over the issue.

To add to the ruling party’s woes, Alpesh Thakore, who heads the OBC-SC-ST Ekta Manch and Thakore-Kshatriya Sena, gave an ultimatum of 10 days to the State government to announce a waiver of farmers’ loans, as done by the BJP governments in UP and Maharashtra. Else, he would launch an ‘ annadata andolan’ , he said, adding that debt-ridden farmers would refuse to repay loans as the first step of the agitation.

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