Ahmedabad: Congress candidates Gaurav Pandya, Chandrika Chudasama confident of win

Jaishankar and Jugal Thakore arrived at the Vidhan Sabha building around 11am on Tuesday and filed their nomination papers amid chants of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ to returning officer CB Pandya. The candidates were accompanied by Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, BJP state president Jitu Vaghani and state ministers Bhupendra Chudasma and Saurabh Patel.

The Congress team arrived at the Vidhan Sabha building around 3pm. Chandrika Chudasama and Gaurav Pandya were accompanied by Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee senior leaders, including Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani, party state president Amit Chavda, party spokesperson Manish Doshi and leader Siddarth Patel. The mood in the Congress circles remained sombre even though senior leaders reiterated that they were contesting to win.

Veteran leader Chandrika Chudasma, a native of Junagadh, has been with the party since 1976. Chudasma was elected as MLA four times — in 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2002 — from Mangrol in Junagadh. She also served as general secretary and vice-president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee and a member of INC core committee. From 1987 to 1995, she was the chairman of Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee as the only woman to hold such a position in India.

Speaking to reporters after filing the nomination, Chudasama said, “It is our honour to follow the instructions of the party High Command that decided to field Gaurav Pandya and I for the Rajya Sabha seats. We are contesting to win and I am sure that Congress will win both the seats.”

When asked about the recent decision of Supreme Court refusing to entertain a plea by the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee against the decision of the Election Commission to hold the by-polls for two seats separately, Chudasama said, “Nyay (justice) will prevail regardless of the political conspiracies and we will emerge victorious. This is a fight between Dharma and Adharma (good versus evil) and in the end, Dharma will win.”

Gaurav Pandya, a native of Valsad, joined INC’s student wing National Students Union of India in 1977 and has been an active member of the state Congress core committee since 2010.

Pandya said, “We are expecting good result in the bypolls and we are contesting to win. The Supreme Court has appreciated the fact that its is a major concern for law (the plea by Congress). They have not gone into the merit of the matter but said that the notification is already out and election proceedings are going on, it would not be proper to interfere at this stage.”