A mere two days after Shankersinh Vaghela reportedly walked out of a meeting with Rahul Gandhi, posters backing the Gujarat Congress leader have come up in Vadodara and other places in the State. The posters suggest that ‘Bapu’ will be the next Chief Minister after the Assembly polls later this year, regardless of which party — the Congress or the BJP — wins.

Put up by people identifying themselves as Amo, Gauravvanta Gujaratiyon (we, the proud Gujaratis), the posters, which feature Vaghela sitting on a decorated chair, claim Jan-Jan Na Hit Ma Bapu Ni Sarkar (in public interest, the government of Bapu will come to power).

This has left the Congress red-faced, even though Vaghela has been keeping the party leadership on tenterhooks for a while now. Interestingly, the former Union Minister ruled himself out of the chief ministerial race earlier in the year, but Vaghela’s supporters have been running a social media campaign rooting for him.

‘Demands ignored’ Last Saturday, Vaghela had exited the meeting on poll preparations called by Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi. He even skipped a group photo session of the core committee members with the Congress Vice-President. ‘Bapu’ was reportedly unhappy as his demand, to be named either the party’s CM candidate or as the election in-charge of the State, was “ignored.”

Later, Bharatsinh Solanki, the Gujarat Congress chief said the party would not have a CM face. Even Ahmed Patel, who is party chief Sonia Gandhi’s Political Secretary and a Rajya MP from the State, has said that the Congress leadership would take a call on the matter of a CM candidate.

The Congress, always suspicious of Vaghela’s RSS-BJP roots, has been trying to ignore or handle him carefully, although he is the Leader of Opposition, the party’s tallest leader and the only one with a mass base. In March, 26 out of the 57 Congress MLAs had urged the party leadership to make him the CM candidate. Ahmed Patel has ignored the demand, and then General Secretary in charge of Gujarat, Gurudas Kamat, who was present at the meeting, has lost his job since then. Vaghela is at odds with Bharatsinh Solanki, who was absent from the meeting.

Recently, Vaghela had claimed that the BJP was trying to poach 20 Congress MLAs, in what was seen as an apparent attempt to arm-twist his party into acceding to his demands. He had also not attended an important meeting called by Solanki.

Meanwhile, sources said the Congress State Executive will meet on Wednesday to make preparations for the coming polls. An organisational shake-up is expected soon.

In prohibition country On the other hand, the BJP was also shamed when Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel’s son Jaimin was prevented from boarding a Qatar Airways flight as he was allegedly “heavily drunk”. Jaimin, accompanied by wife and daughter, also had a heated argument with the airport officials.

Eye-witnesses recall seeing Jaimin, a land dealer, staggering in to the airport, and later being wheeled around due to his inebriated condition. Nitin Patel has denied the incident, calling it a “political conspiracy” to bring a bad name to his family. “My son and his family were going to Greece on a vacation. Since Jaimin fell ill, the family returned home from the airport.”

But there are few takers for the Deputy CM’s defence of his son; the incident has caused greater embarassment to the ruling BJP as the State has had a prohibition policy in place for years.

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