Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Congress working president Hardik Patel and independent MLA Jignesh Mevani met with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi over the selection of the party’s state unit’s new leader.
A delegation of 15 senior Gujarat Congress leaders including Amit Chavda, Shaktisinh Gohil, Paresh Dhanani, Hardik Patel, Arjun Modhwadia, Naran Rathva, Siddharth Patel, Tushar Chaudhary, Gyasuddin Shaikh and Jignesh Mevani had arrived in New Delhi on Thursday night from Ahmedabad to discuss with Gandhi the selection of the new Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president and Leader of Opposition (LoP) ahead of the 2022 Gujarat Vidhan Sabha polls.
As per sources, Patel and Mevani were given priority in the meeting with Gandhi as they had to catch a flight to Patna. “We had a meeting with Rahul ji after which we are now going to Patna to rally for Kanhaiya Kumar and our party for the upcoming bypolls. Soon, we will be sharing details of the outcome of the meeting,”
Sources within the party said Gandhi is having a one-on-one meeting with the senior leaders to discuss the factions within the Gujarat Congress and the roadmap ahead. While one camp is rooting for 61-year-old Shaktisinh Gohil to be GPCC president, the other supports 28-year-old Hardik Patel, the current working president of GPCC. As per sources, while both are considered to be close to the Gandhi family, it is the latter who has the confidence of the senior leaders.
For the past six months, the posts of GPCC president and LoP in the Gujarat Assembly have been lying vacant after interim president Amit Chavda and interim LoP Paresh Dhanani submitted their resignations following the party’s poor performance in the state’s local body polls earlier this year. The party’s poor run continued in the recently held Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) polls as it won just two seats out of 44.
