Poll Pointers

Stung by the Congress high command's decision not to give party tickets to repeatedly vanquished elders in the ensuing elections, the guillotined leaders have turned rebellious.

Former Gujarat deputy chief minister Narhari Amin and former minister Naresh Raval who have fared miserably at the hustings in previous poll encounters and wanted tickets this time as well are now yelling ‘bloody murder’.

Amin wanted a ticket from the Gandhinagar South constituency and Raval from Mehsana but both came a cropper after Delhi ruled that two times losers would not be fielded.

Amin did not respond to high command emissary Rajiv Shukla’s overtures to mollify him and convened a meeting of his supporters in Ahmedabad on Sunday in an apparent muscle flexing exercise. The meeting attended by their supporters sought to serve a two day ultimatum to the party big-wigs to suitably ‘compensate’ them for what is largely a loss of face since the last date of filing nominations is already over. 

”If the Congress hopes to emerge victorious by denying tickets to its key leaders, then it is sorely mistaken”, an angry Amin said.

Amin’s key supporters including Ahmedabad city Congress chief Pankaj Patel and two legislators have quit their posts and some of the candidates from various constituencies in Ahmedabad have also expressed solidarity with him. 

Though Shukla was able to mollify another ticket aspirant leader from eastern Ahmedabad, Himmatsinh Patel, who had been axed, Girish Parmar, a vice-president of the state unit who was hoping to bag the Dani Limbda seat nomination from Ahmedabad quit the party in a huff. By evening he had joined the BJP for the seat after Congress chose to persist with its sitting legislator. Parmar was elected BJP legislator in 1995 but switched sides later.

Earlier, another Congress MLA Lalsinh Vadodia from Umreth, who had quit the BJP after he was denied a ticket in 2007, went back to the saffron fold when the Congress allocated the seat to the NCP following a seat sharing arrangement. In Congress ruled Junagadh municipal corporation, deputy mayor Girish Kotecha upped the banner of revolt after the ticket aspirant was looked over and filed his candidature as an independent but was won back later as did another party strongman P.D. Vasava in Bharuch.

However the placating magic did not work in the case of Congress leader Poonam Madam in Khambhaliya constituency of Jamnagar district for the BJP was quick to pounce on the opening and offered her the party ticket. The daughter of a four time independent MLA late Hemat Madam, her uncle Vikram Madam is the congress MP from the district.

Even as the state Congress leadership is grappling with fires of protest raging over the axing of old and denial to the new, the leadership, by and large, remains unfazed. ”We have worked hard on the caste mathematics this time and hope to make good” ,said a top leader who did not want to be named for obvious reasons.

Talk is that even former union minister Shankersinh Vaghela who is the chairman of the state campaign committee for the ensuing elections had to do some heavy handed canvassing with the party top brass before he could manage a ticket for himself from Kapadvanj. He had lost the last Lok Sabha elections to the BJP candidate from Godhra seat.