Shankersinh Vaghela: 100 candidates, out of campaign
Thirty-five years after he won his first election from Kapadvanj, Shankersinh Vaghela, now 77, has chosen to stay out of the 2017 campaign. Although his new front Jan Vikalp Morcha has fielded 100 candidates, most of them contesting on the symbol of the All India Hindustan Congress Party, Vaghela himself is not contesting, nor has he addressed any public meeting for his candidates. “I will chart my future course only after December 18,” Vaghela told
His new front campaigned with a number of billboards and some candidates also sent out recorded messages. “We did not give any campaign funds to the candidates. They spent from their own pockets,” Vaghela said. He did not field candidates against CM Vijay Rupani, state BJP president Jitu Vaghani, Congress national spokesman Shaktisinh Gohil and Congress MLA Paresh Dhanani.
“A Congress victory will mean the likes of Hardik Patel are finished,” said Vaghela, who quit the Congress on his 77th birthday in July, as leader of the Opposition, after having served 20 years in the party.
Vaghela’s son Mahendrasinh, who was Congress MLA from Bayad in Aravalli, is not contesting either. Although 13 MLAs had followed Vaghela in resigning in the wake of cross-voting in the presidential elections, none of them joined him and many got BJP tickets.
Vaghela is acknowledged as the brain behind the BJP split in 1995, when his Rashtriya Janata Party formed the government with breakaway BJP and Congress MLAs, with Vaghela as CM — he had won from Radhanpur as in independent before launching the RJP. In 1998, the RJP won four seats; in 1999, it merged with the Congress.
A crowd-puller, Vaghela is the sitting Congress MLA from Kapadvanj and has won most of his polls whichever his party. The Kshatriya leader wields influence in OBC-dominated areas of North and Central Gujarat.
Ahmed Patel: Not seen or heard, but heard about
Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi's political secretary, is considered the key Congress strategist but has himself been far from prominent in the Gujarat campaign. On the field are AICC chief media in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala and his colleagues Pawan Khera and Priyanka Chaturvedi.
Ahmed Patel, whose election to the Rajya Sabha earlier this year was a high-voltage event leading to a series of exits from the Congress, was seen in several public meetings and roadshows, as well as in Rahul Gandhi’s temple visit at Somnath — which also led to a controversy about Rahul’s religious beliefs. Patel did not, however, address any public meeting throughout the campaign, except in Jambusar, Palej and two other places in his home district of Bharuch.
Even when not overly active, his name continues to be central to the polls. It was dragged into the BJP campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi
In a election speech in Banaskantha, the Prime Minister referred to a purported post by an “army officer” of Pakistan claiming that he wanted the Congress to win the elections and Ahmed Patel to be appointed chief minister.
This was after controversial posters had appeared in Surat the day Modi addressed a rally in the city on December 8. These posters exhorted Muslims to vote for the Congress to ensure that Ahmed Patel becomes Gujarat chief minister.
Asked why he was not active in the election campaign in his home state, Patel said, “I was very much active from but behind the scenes. I prefer to keep a low profile.”
Party sources, however, said Patel and other Muslim leaders avoided appearances in public as part of a party strategy to prevent the BJP from polarising the electorate.
Patel has been elected to Lok Sabha from Bharuch three times, and to Rajya Sabha six times including the current term.
Keshubhai Patel: No election, just Somnath Trust
FORMER CHIEF Minister Keshubhai Patel and his family have for once stayed away from the elections. Last election, Keshubhai was a central figure with his newly floated Gujarat Parivartan Party that sought to represent his Patidar community against alleged neglect.
Keshubhai had come out of a hiatus of 1½ decades to challenge Narendra Modi, who had replaced him as chief minister in 2001. He won a big victory from Visavadar but his party won just two seats out of 182 in a traditionally bipolar state. Two years later, Keshubhai merged his party with the BJP and resigned as MLA citing age and health. His son Bharat lost the bypoll to Visavadar.
Keshubhai, one of the founding members of the BJP, won a series of polls starting 1975. In 1995, he became the party’s first chief minister but had to step down in months following a rebellion. In 1998 he returned as CM but was replaced with Modi in the wake of the Kutch earthquake. Sidelined in 2002 and 2007, Keshubhai was 84 when he tried to revive his career in 2012.
This year, Prime Minister Modi visited Keshubhai’s home in September after the death of the veteran leader’s son Pravin. CM Vijay Rupani visited Keshubhai last month before filing his nomination.
“Keshubhai is not involved in the election in any manner. The only office he continues to hold is chairman of Shree Somnath Trust,” a source close to him said.
Son Bharat too has stayed out of the campaign. “Around a year ago, I conveyed to the BJP my decision not to contest. I thought I should not contest when Patidars are agitating for reservation, and the community is divided,” Bharat told
He added that he neither supports nor opposes the agitation led by Hardik Patel — who, incidentally, had sought Keshubhai’s blessings and continues to mention him as a victim of BJP’s “anti-Patidar” sentiment.
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