Gandhi’s great grandson backs Ravat

Gandhi, who lives in Mumbai, arrived in Vadodara on Sunday to support Ravat in the ongoing bypolls. Speaking to mediapersons here, Gandhi said that the entire process of conducting bypolls was a “waste of public money” and the election process should be made simple to accommodate the second highest vote gainer as the MP of the constituency in case the seat is vacated by the sitting or elected MP for any reason in order to deter party candidates from contesting   multiple seats.

Gandhi said, “The arrangement of bypolls results in much waste of public money as it allows party candidates to take multiple seats during elections and pick and choose seats. Instead,there should be provision to automatically consider the second highest candidate of the election as the MP if the winning candidate withdraws for any reason.”

Gandhi attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for vacating the Vadodara constituency in favour of Varanasi and said, “Modi chose to retain Varanasi like Devdas chose Chandramukhi over Paro in the epic love story. That in itself shows how good days have arrived in Vadodara that must go through another phase of polls within the first 100 days of the new government.”

Gandhi did not concede if his foundation would support Modi’s “clean India” call that is said to be based on Mahatma Gandhi’s call for cleanliness. When asked, he said, “I’m not sure if Modi’s plan for clean India is akin to the one promoted by Bapu. We are too small an organisation to decide if we will be part of this drive but I do know that this drive for clean India can be successful only if the common people join the movement. For this, Modi must go out and collect the common people in this drive.”

Gandhi asked the first time Lok Sabha contestant, Ravat, to  pledge that he would not “desert” the city like Modi. Ravat, who took the pledge on Gandhi’s insistence said, “It is indeed my honour that Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson came to Vadodara to specially campaign for me and extended his confidence in my intention to serve the people of Vadodara. My entire campaign is focused around the promise that I’m here for Vadodara not just as Modi’s namesake, but to do what he did not.”