Angry Congress workers defacing party’s Ahmedabad office.
Not just the BJP, the Congress too is facing heat (and protests) from partymen-turned rebels in Gujarat with elections just two weeks away.
Scores of Congress workers stormed the party headquarters in Ahmedabad on Monday and burnt posters of senior leader Bharatsinh Solanki, protesting the decision to give ticket to sitting MLA Imran Khedawala from his Jamalpur-Khadia seat in the city.
The angry protesters also damaged former Gujarat Congress chief Solanki’s nameplate and defaced the building’s walls with spray paint by writing defamatory words against him.
“This is a conspiracy to give away the seat to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),” an angry protester was quoted saying by news agency PTI.
On its part, the ruling BJP has dropped 38 sitting MLAs, including five ministers and the speaker of the assembly, in its first list of 160 candidates.
A six-time BJP MLA, Madhubhai Shrivastav, has decided to contest as an Independent after the ruling party decided not to re-nominate him.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel “cannot do anything” about the ticket as “everything is decided by the top leadership in Delhi”, said Mr Shrivastav, a local “bahubali” or strongman-politician who was once named in a 2002 Gujarat riots case.
Elections for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held in two phases – December 1 and 5. Votes will be counted on December 8.
