Former CM Solanki’s son likely to head Gujarat PCC

The party presidency of the Congress in Gujarat is likely to go to Bharatsinh Solanki, filling a post vacant since the death of BK Gadhvi in...

The party presidency of the Congress in Gujarat is likely to go to Bharatsinh Solanki, filling a post vacant since the death of BK Gadhvi in September.

A Lok Sabha member from Anand, Bharatsinh is the son of Congress warhorse, former chief minister and Kshatriya leader Madhavsinh Solanki. Once the virtual lord of Gujarat, the elder Solanki was the architect of KHAM—a social alliance of Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims—which guaranteed the Congress several electoral successes, until the party fell on bad days.

Bharatsinh was an AICC secretary until yesterday’s reshuffle. The party high command cleared the path to his advancement with the nomination of Chimanbhai Patel’s widow Urmila Patel as special invitee to the CWC and of son Siddharth Patel as an AICC secretary. This kind of dual adjustment of a single family in the AICC team is unusual, but Sonia Gandhi is said to have undertaken it to placate the mother-son duo, owing to their clout in the powerful Patel community. In the state Congress, they also lead a faction made of erstwhile Janata Dal people, who are basically Chimanbhai’s followers.

Siddarth, an MLA, was among the key contenders for the Gujarat party chief’s post. The other contenders for the state presidency are Narhari Amin, Shaktisinh Gohil and the Leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly Arjun Modhvadia.