A hundred years ago, in 1917, Gujarat had gifted a Mahatma to the nation when Gandhiji, fondly called Bapu , launched the famous Champaran Satyagraha in Bihar and changed the very ‘genetic’ character of the Indian National Congress from that of a petitioner to the British Raj to that of the biggest representative of India’s struggle for freedom.

Come 2017, the Congress Party is feeling the heat from another “Bapu ” — as senior leader Shankarsinh Vaghela is fondly known in the socio-political circles.

Speculations about Vaghela’s next political move have started doing the rounds after he claimed on Tuesday that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was trying to “poach” around 20 Congress legislators, out of 57, in Gujarat where Assembly elections are due later this year.

On Monday, 36 Congress MLAs, who met at Vaghela’s residence in the State capital in the presence of AICC General Secretary in-charge Gurudas Kamat, had urged the party high command to make Vaghela the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate. Interestingly, Vaghela had himself ‘withdrawn’ from Chief Minister’s candidature only on March 20 even as his supporters ran a sponsored campaign on Facebook for him as the next possible Chief Minister. And he had himself told reporters that he would meet them in the “Chief Minister’s Chambers” on next year’s Gudi Padwa (the Hindu New Year).

Wooing legislators On Tuesday, Vaghela said the BJP had approached 20 Congress legislators trying to woo them by stating that the Congress would not given them tickets this time and that they should consider defecting to the BJP.

“These MLAs have told me so, in the presence of Kamat, in my capacity as Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Vidhan Sabha,” said Vaghela. He also urged the party leadership to appoint a Patidar leader as LoP.

Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel, who is political secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, said on Tuesday that the party leadership will take a decision on who should be the Chief Ministerial candidate. He, however, did not comment on whether 36 MLAs were supporting Vaghela.

Sources in the Congress Party, however, dismissed the claim as Vaghela’s tactics to extract the best deal for his political future. But the BJP is amused at Vaghela’s flip-flops that have only added to the discomfiture in the Congress Party, which is now apparently divided into two broad factions — pro-Vaghela and anti-Vaghela.

Panic reaction, says BJP State BJP chief Jitubhai Vaghani described Vaghela’s claims as the Congress Party’s panic. “They are claiming that the BJP is set to lose the Assembly polls. At the same time, they are claiming that we are poaching them or engaging in horse-trading.”

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