It was Gujarat Congress unit chief Shankersinh Vaghela’s birthday on July 21, yet another reason for the former RSS pracharak and current Great Congress Hope to celebrate. Vaghela has bounced backed on the centre stage in a way that doesn’t surprise those close to him. Fielded in the belief that it takes a Sangh man to trip another, Vaghela reeks of confidence and asserts that the BJP, by panic-calling for early elections in the state, has walked into a trap of its own making. Excerpts from an interview with DARSHAN DESAI: • You are very confident of a Congress victory under your leadership. How are you going to achieve this ? I am not over-confident. I know that the people of Gujarat can see through the BJP’s communal attitude. Only the BJP thinks that the Hindus will vote for them blindly. In fact, the BJP is playing blind, like in that card game. The people of Gujarat want peace, prosperity and progress. I have no great strategies, for most of them have been laid out by the ruling party itself. I am going to demand from the BJP an account of their last four-and-a-half years in office. • Why then is the Congress opposing the dissolution of the State Assembly and early elections in Gujarat? Our opposition has nothing to do with when the elections will be held. Do you mean to say that if they play around with the Constitution as per their whims and fancies, we should keep quiet and watch? Before the dissolution of the Assembly, the ruling party is bound to call its mandatory six-month session. The Assembly ended on April 4. It was necessary that they call a session before the end of the six-month period from April 4 and then dissolve the House. The Constitution and the Election Commission are nobody’s ancestral property. • But the ruling BJP only argues that the Congress is afraid of facing elections? (Laughs) NOW you tell me who is scared of whom? Who is asking for early elections, the Congress or the BJP? The BJP fears that if the elections are held on schedule, they will lose. That’s why they want the polls early. • But this also means the Congress is scared of an early poll. That is your view. We have already launched our campaign and we are confident that the people of Gujarat are with us. We never differentiate between Hindus and Muslims for we know that every human being has the same basic need and is the same. I may have come from the RSS, but I have never stood for the killing of anyone, whether on communal lines or otherwise. • How will you tackle the Hindutva card which the BJP seems to have successfully revived? What Hindutva is the BJP talking about? And what is the chief minister complaining about some elements trying to give Gujarat a bad name? It is this party and its very chief minister who are responsible for the state’s image getting tarnished across the country and the world. And (laughs) now he (Modi) calls himself the messiah of Gujarat. They all are living in utopia. The Hindu is not what they take him to be. I am also a Hindu, there are many Hindus in the Congress party and everywhere else, only a handful of them is communal. Lord Mahadev is Hindutva’s tallest icon, and I’m Shanker (winks). • You are also from the RSS. I forgot about my past the day I quit the BJP. It doesn’t make any difference to me today. • Don’t you think that it’s because of the bankruptcy of the Congress that an outsider like you has been chosen as the State president? What do you mean by outsider? I have been in the Congress for the last few years and during that period, I haven’t worked for any other party. I am marketing the Congress, not the BJP. The very fact that I come from the BJP and the RSS is my inherent advantage. It automatically becomes the BJP’s disadvantage. • What will your election strategy be? Do you think I need a strategy? The four-and-a-half years of BJP rule has laid out the strategy for us. The people do understand this and we will also explain it to them. Tell me—not just me, even the people of Gujarat have begun to ask—what has the BJP government done in these years? Does it have a single achievement to its credit? Where is the water, the electricity? Gujarat has gone back on industrial investment, there are no major new projects.
