Ahmedabad: Sharad Pawer-led National Congress Party (NCP) will not forge an alliance with the Congress in Gujarat for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls as well as bypolls in five Assembly seats.
NCP’s Gujarat president Jayant Boski on Thursday announced that NCP will contest all 26 Lok Sabha seats and all five seats in the bypolls. “We tried to stich an alliance with the Congress but there has been no response from the Congress. So, we have decided to go solo in Gujarat," Boski told media persons.
The NCP and the Congress are alliance partners in Maharashtra and are both part of the loosely-defined mahagathbandhan formed to take on the BJP.
Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Manish Doshi said that while NCP talks about fighting the “anti-secular forces”, its every move helps the same forces.
“Now it’s up to the NCP to decide what to do. Congress had an alliance with NCP in the past in Lok Sabha polls, but NCP has to introspect the ground reality of its presence in the state,’’ Doshi added.
According to political observers, the entry of Shankersinh Vaghela into the NCP fold in January could have played a part in the falling apart of alliance talks. The former CM, who had left the Congress in 2017, has often been termed a ‘saffron mole’ to divide the opposition vote bank.
Analysts said it would be interesting to see how the NCP decides its candidates in Gujarat and how it impacts Congress’s prospects.
In the 2014 elections, the Congress gave just one seat to NCP in Gujarat. Kandhal Jadeja had contested from Porbandar but lost to BJP’s Vitthal Radadiya. At present, Kandhal Jadeja is the lone MLA NCP has in the state.
According to political commentator Dr Hari Desai, NCP in Gujarat has no roots and has always worked as “BJP’s B-team”. During the Rajya Sabha Polls in 2017, Jadeja had voted for the BJP candidate.
“Shankersinh Vaghela has been helping the BJP in Gujarat since last many years and Vaghela has compulsions for it. He has had CBI and ED raids against him in a land case when he was the Union Textiles minister in UPA government and his every political move indicates his intentions and compulsions,” Desai told News18.
In August, 2017, what was supposed to be a simple win for Ahmed Patel in a Rajya Sabha election had gone down to the wire. Although Patel had managed to eke out a win, the Congress sees Vaghela’s hand in it.
When asked about Vaghela’s role in NCP’s decision to go solo, Doshi said he doesn’t think it played a part. However, Congress insiders say that Vaghela wants Congress to give Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat to NCP so that he can contest from the border district.
Comments
0 comment