Indranil Rajyaguru rejoins Congress as AAP announces CM face in Gujarat

Rajyaguru had quit the Congress in April and joined the AAP in the presence of party supremo Arvind Kejriwal. A businessman by profession, Rajyaguru was the richest MLA from Gujarat and had won the Rajkot (East) seat in the 2012 Assembly elections. In 2017, he decided to leave his seat and take on the then chief minister Vijay Rupani in Rajkot (West)—a battle he lost.

After rejoining the party, Rajyaguru said, “I have been associated with the Congress ever since my father became a party member. My family was not supportive of me leaving the Congress. I had joined the AAP because I felt the BJP was bad for the country and it was necessary to defeat it in Gujarat. However, looking at the functioning of AAP, I saw it was trying to fool the people the way BJP was doing. This never used to happen in the Congress.”

He accused the AAP of helping the BJP in Gujarat. “Whatever I could understand from their talks and ticket distribution (for Gujarat polls), I felt it was aiding the BJP to continue in power as a B-team… I had gone to AAP to defeat BJP and that was not happening. I realised only the Congress can defeat the BJP in Gujarat,” he added. Rajyaguru said he was “unhappy” with AAP and did not accompany Kerjiwal in his last three public events in the state.

Meanwhile, Gujarat AAP chief Gopal Italia linked Rajyaguru’s exit to Gadhvi being announced the CM face. “When all the AAP supporters in Gujarat were celebrating (the Gadhvi announcement), Rajyaguru left the party and returned to Congress. Indranilbhai wanted to become AAP’s chief ministerial face and was pressuring the party for quite some time. He had also requested at least 15 tickets and the party told him that it will follow its system of selecting candidates,” Italia said.

He said the 15 people for whom Rajyaguru was seeking tickets in the elections could either follow his footsteps or remain within AAP.