Gujarat: Two OBC leaders quit BJP, join Congress

Koli leader Shamji Chauhan likely to be pitted against Congress turncoat Kunwarji Bavaliya in Jasdan bypoll.

Amit Chavda and Rajiv Satav (extreme right) with Shamji Chauhan and Ashok Dangar on Tuesday. (Twitter)

Former BJP MLA and Koli leader Shamji Chauhan and former mayor of Rajkot Ashok Dangar, who belongs to the Ahir community, joined the Congress on Tuesday, saying that the BJP has been doing injustice to their OBC community. They were inducted into the Congress by state unit chief Amit Chavda and Congress general secretary in-charge of Gujarat Rajiv Satav at a function at party headquarters here. Over two hundred of their supporters from Saurashtra also joined the Congress.

Chauhan is likely to be fielded by the Congress in Jasdan Assembly constituency, where by-elections will be held following the resignation of Kunwarji Bavaliya, who had won the seat on a Congress ticket last December. Bavaliya, a Koli leader, had quit the Congress and also resigned as an MLA about a month ago. He joined the BJP and was immediately made a cabinet minister.

“I am ready to contest the bypolls against Bavaliya in Jasdan if the party wants me to… I will ensure that Bavaliya does not win from Jasdan again,” Chauhan replied when asked whether he would contest the bypoll. Chauhan was elected from Chotila in Surendrangar district during 2012 Assembly elections on a BJP ticket. In 2016, he was appointed parliamentary secretary by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. Last November, he resigned from the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections after he was denied ticket to contest from Chotila.

Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP of making “false promises” to the people for votes, Chauhan said, “All his (Modi’s) promises have proved to be hollow. Farmers are not being given crop insurance for the loss of their crops due to floods. When it was brought to the notice of the state government, nothing was done. No development has taken place in the villages of Gujarat. The BJP has been doing injustice to the Koli community for the last five years. Kolis have been accommodated neither in the party organisation nor in the government,” Chauhan added.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders termed Dangar’s return to Congress as “ghar wapasi (homecoming)” of the former mayor. Dangar was the mayor of Rajkot between 2000 and 2003 when the Congress was ruling the civic body. He had quit the Congress to join the BJP in 2012 after being denied ticket to contest from Rajkot Assembly seat. “The OBC community has not benefited under the Modi rule. Modi is only talking, but doing nothing,” he said on Tuesday.

Welcoming them to the party fold, state Congress chief Chavda said that people are leaving the BJP because they have lost trust in their leadership. “Both these OBC leaders have realised that promises made by the BJP governments, in Gujarat as well at the Centre, have not been fulfiled. The poor has become more poor under the BJP rule. Both these leaders are joining the Congress to fight injustice against OBCs and the poor,” said Chavda. Echoing similar views, Satav said the Modi government has not paid any attention to the problems being faced by the OBCs across the country.

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Gujarat bypolls