2 MLAs on Congress Lok Sabha list of 7: Tribal face Anant, sole woman legislator Geniben

Geniben Thakor (48) is the sole woman Congress MLA in the current Gujarat Assembly. A two-time MLA, Geniben defeated the BJP’s Swarupji Thakor in 2022 in Vav. In 2017, she was hailed for defeating former BJP minister Shankar Chaudhary from the same constituency. Tharad MLA Chaudhary is currently the Speaker of the current Gujarat Assembly. She is known to be vocal about women-related issues both in the Legislative Assembly, even if it means supporting the BJP legislators, and outside.

Patel (47), on the other hand, is the tribal youth face of Gujarat Congress. A two-time MLA from the Vansda constituency, Patel is also the chairman of Gujarat Congress’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) Cell. Patel was the driving force behind tribal protests against the Central government’s Par-Tapi-Narmada river interlinking project passing through different districts of South Gujarat like Valsad, Navsari, Tapi, Dangs, and Surat. Following aggressive protests, the Central government dropped the project in March 2022. Patel also continues to hold protests against the Bharat Mala Project of the central government in the South Gujarat region over land acquisition concerns.

Lalan (30), who has been nominated by the party to fight from the Kutch constituency reserved for SC, is the president of the East Kutch district unit of Youth Congress and is in the shipping and logistics business. He is based in Gandhidham, the commercial hub of Kutch. “Lalan will be contesting his maiden election. Bharat Solanki, who had unsuccessfully contested the assembly election in 2022 from the Gandhidham seat, was also in the race for Congress nomination for the Lok Sabha election but respecting Rahul Gandhi’s policy of promoting youths, the party has given a ticket to Lalan,” Yajuvendrasinh Jadeja, president of Kutch district unit of Congress, said.

Rohan Gupta (46) is the current national spokesperson of Congress and former chairperson of the social media department of the Congress. Gupta is also the son of a veteran Congress leader, Rajkumar Gupta, who migrated to Gujarat from Bhiwani in Haryana. The Guptas were mired in controversy in 2022 when Rohan’s wife and brother’s association with a company promoted by co-operative banker Ajay Patel, a close aide of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, became public. Gupta had then claimed that his wife and brother had resigned when they learned about the promoter. Bharat Makwana (59) is a former Congress MLA from Sojitra and the son of former Union minister Yogendra Makwana.

Meanwhile, Lalit Vasoya (60) is the current Rajkot district president of Congress and former party MLA from Dhoraji constituency of Saurashtra. Vasoya was an active member of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) which spearheaded the Patidar quota agitation between 2015 and 2017. He was elected to the Gujarat assembly in 2017. However, in 2022, Vasoya lost to the BJP’s Mahendra Padalia from Dhoraji. He will be fighting the Lok Sabha election from the Porbandar constituency against BJP candidate and Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

Vasoya, who is a farmer who also runs an oil mill, had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the same seat but had lost to Ramesh Dhaduk of the BJP. “But the situation has changed much since then. People are now fed up of the BJP rule. Farmers are angry as they are not getting crop insurance. On top of all this, voters of Porbandar Lok Sabha seat don’t want an outsider to be their representative in Lok Sabha,” said Vasoya. Siddharth Chaudhary (47) is a Congress candidate from the Bardoli (ST) constituency in South Gujarat. A leader of opposition in Tapi district panchayat, Sidhharth is also the son of former party MP and MLA Amarsinh Z Chaudhary.