The Gujarat Congress unit now has got a new state president and leader of the opposition in the 182-member state assembly. Nine months ago, office-bearers of both positions had resigned following the party’s dismal performance in the civic elections.
After long deliberations with state party in-charge and senior party leaders, Rahul Gandhi late on Thursday evening decided on Jagdish Thakor to be the Gujarat Congress president and Sukhram Rathwa as the leader of opposition. State party leaders confirmed the development. The formal announcement is likely to be made later on Friday.
Thakor replaces Amit Chavda and Rathwa replaces Paresh Dhanani. This was the third time that Chavda and Dhanani had put in their papers. Congress’s last creditable performance had been in the 2017 assembly polls, when it won 77 seats, managing to restrict the BJP’s juggernaut to 99. Now, the party’s strength in the assembly stands at 65, with MLAs resigning and later joining the BJP. A couple of these defectors have been made ministers also.
Thakor, who is 64 years old, is a former MP from north Gujarat and is a OBC leader. Rathwa, who hails from Pavijetpur in central Gujarat, is a tribal leader. He is 60.
The move is an attempt by the party to get back to its fold the OBC and tribal votes, which have been slipping away from it and going into the ruling BJP’s kitty. It is also being viewed as the party’s attempt to go back to the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim) theory, floated by former chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki.
Sources said that Thakor’s name wasn’t decided without difficulties. Several names were doing the rounds. The name of Kshatriya leader Shaktisinh Gohil, a Rajya Sabha MP, is also reported to have been considered. However, he, reportedly, said no for the top job in Gujarat.
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Deepak Babaria’s name was also considered. However, there was unease about him from the faction headed by former Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki. Babaria was earlier party in-charge for Madhya Pradesh.
Since the leadership wasn’t proving effective, the party high command also made Patidar leader Hardik Patel as state unit working president. However, nothing much emerged out of it as there was a large group in the party, especially the senior leadership, that was unwilling to accept Patel, a newcomer and youth leader, as their head. Moreover, there have been differences over his style of functioning.
Thakor and Rathwa face an uphill task in improving the party’s performance in the assembly elections, scheduled to be held late in 2022.
Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party has been making its presence felt in the civic elections and has decided to contest in all the assembly seats.
