BJP rebels win the day and JMC polls

The BJP has 33 councillors in the 51 member council. Eighteen BJP councillors voted for the rebels.

BJP leaders had maintained suspense till the last moment. State BJP general secretary Sanjay Joshi arrived here with the party whip for party’s official candidates. State BJP vice-president Vasuben Trivedi and Rajkot City BJP president Jitu Shah were also present when Joshi opened the sealed package containing the instructions from the high command.

A hajuria-khajuria game seems to have been played. When outgoing mayor Hasmukh Jethwa called the general meeting of the council to order, rebel BJP councillors proposed Zala as the mayoral candidate. Zala got 33 votes, including 17 opposition votes.

Kiran Sheth was elected unanimously, as the hard-liner group of the BJP had already left the meeting hall soon after rebel Zala was declared elected. Earlier Bhuvaneshwari Vara moved a proposal for Kiran Sheth, which was seconded by Janaki Khetani.

In view of the changed circumstances, the BJP changed the name for the chairmanship of the standing committee. Though Sanjay Joshi had come with a whip proposing Jasraj Parmar’s name, Chandubhai Dama’s name was proposed. Dama was declared elected unanimously.

Soon after election, the mayor, deputy mayor, their new team, and supporters rushed to the BJP office near Pancheshwar Tower and made a representation before the party officials claiming that they were the “real BJP”.

Meanwhile, Vasuben Trivedi said the party would not spare anybody and would take strong action against the rebel group as this indiscipline could not be tolerated.

Laughing at the threat of disciplinary action, former general secretary of the city BJP, Surendra Vyas said: “On the contrary, we are going to ask the party bosses to take action against Vasuben Trivedi and Hiten Bhatt and their group, due to which the party has been suffering one blow after another.”

“We lost the Dhrol-Jodia assembly by-election, we lost the primary education committee election — all this only because of our local leadership of so-called hard-liners. They have themselves never been elected, but want to teach political lessons and discipline to the those who have been elected to office,” they said.

Newly elected BJP leader in the House, Pradip Thaker, said that had former MP Chandresh Patel and state minister Parmanand Khattar sat together, they could have resolved our long pending internal dispute. But both of them have failed.