Congress constitutes important committee for 2022 polls. Local elections in next February also on cards
By Abdulhafiz Lakhani siyasat.net
Ahmedabad :Congress has constituted seven important committees in its Gujarat state unit for 2022 Assembly polls.The Congress is mulling to contest the local body elections in Gujarat next February with a new team.
This will be the first elections in the Congress after the demise of Ahmed Patel in November. Patel was a Rajya Sabha MP from the western state since 1993
Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi has approved the constitution of committees for campaign, manifesto, strategy, programme implementation, election management, media and publicity and coordination.
Arjun Modwadia has been appointed as the chairman of Campaign Committee, Deepak Babaria to lead Manifesto Committee, Bharat Singh Solanki as head of the Strategy Committee and Siddharth Patel as Election Management Committee chief.
Dr Tushar Chaudhary has been appointed Chairman of Media and Publicity Committee while Kadir Pirzada has been given responsibility as a Chairman for Program Implementation Committee.
AICC in-charge Rajiv Satav will head Coordination Committee, Gujarat PCC chief Amit Chavda and CLP Leader Paresh Dhanani, Working President Hardik Patel have been included in the Committees along with other senior leaders of the state unit of the party.
Congress has seen a bad performance in the recent Assembly by-polls after which PCC Chief Amit Chavda and Paresh Dhanani had offered their resignations. After the formation of these committees, change of leadership in the Congress Gujarat chief is also on the cards.
BJP, which has been in power in Gujarat for over two decades, bagged all eight seats which went to by-polls held last month. Elections for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly is due in 2022. In 2017 Assembly polls, BJP secured a majority by winning 99 seats, while Congress bagged 77 seats.
Recently, All the 8 seats that went to the bypolls were held by the Congress. But in this by-election, the seats went to the BJP. Not only that, they have won these seats by a greater margin than in the 2017 elections. Throughout the election, the Congress used the same slogan, “Gando Chalshe, Pan Gaddar Nahi” (We will go crazy but not be traitors). But the people prefer a party instead of their face. That is why the 5 Congress MLAs who were given tickets by the BJP in 2017 have won the elections with even more votes than before.
In this by-election, the Congress lost 1.42 lakh votes while the BJP got 12,101 votes. On the other hand, the BJP’s vote share rose by 6.79 per cent, as that of the Congress fell by 14 per cent. This is why the Chief Minister, excited by the result, called it a trailer for the 2022 elections. This result is most important for newly appointed president C.R. Patil. As soon as Patil came to power in the organisation of election management, he started shooting arrows from his own bow. By snatching all eight seats in Congress, he has shown that his goal of Mission 182 in 2022 is not a castle in the air.
The BJP faring better is a result of the planning of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. But the effect of Prime Minister Modi’s rallies was also seen in the poll results. The inauguration of the sea plane before the by-elections as well as other projects’ given as gifts to the public at the Girnar Ropeway and Statue of Unity have given immense benefits to the BJP.
Ahmedabad-based political analyst Prakash Shah blamed the weak leadership for the Congress party’s debacle in the by-elections. “The Congress leadership has failed to keep its flock together and the BJP is also readily accommodating them. This shows that the Congress leadership is weak and its legislators are politically pliable,” he said.
Even during the Lok Sabha elections, the performance of the Congress was so bad that the Congress could not open an account. Something similar has happened in the by-election results. The Congress being wiped out in eight seats has prompted state president Amit Chavda and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Paresh Dhanani to accept moral responsibility for the defeat.In this regard, a few times ago, the young Patidar leader Hardik Patel was appointed as the acting state president of the Congress, but the magic of Hardik patel did not work even in the Patidar-dominated seats like Morabi. Both these seats were lost by the Congress. Hardik Patel tweeted after the results that the traders are changing sides due to the defeat. Thus, the youth leadership of the Congress has failed miserably.
According to reliable sources, In Gujarat Congress, only some leaders have a saying in the party, whereas many other members are not given importance. The Gujarat Congress leaders do not even heed to the central high command’s decisions as it was evident in the name selections of candidates in previous elections. This is one of the reasons for the continuous decline of the Party in the state.
To be in contention for the next elections in Modi land- Gujarat, the Congress has to take some radical steps. The starting point is party-wide primaries for all positions, starting at the booth level, and ending at the state presidency. And to achieve that you need the kind of organisational energy that the old guard cannot bring. Sonia Gandhi served her party well in the 90s. But this is not the 1990s, the world has changed. It is up to the Congress to understand the nature of the change.
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