Split wide open

That isn8217;t all. At a meeting on July 26 to prepare for the celebrations, in the name of mobilising youth, Solanki followers alleged that State Youth Congress president Himmatsinh Patel was incompetent and should be removed. Patel belongs to the rival Ahmed Patel group, which includes State Congress chief C.D. Patel and Leader of Opposition Amarsinh Chaudhary.

So far, the Ahmed Patel group has not reacted. Perhaps, it is still licking the wounds of last month8217;s humiliation when the AICC had refused to ratify the suspension of five Solanki supporters, ordered by the PCC chief, and party president Sonia Gandhi had accepted the resignation of Ahmed Patel as AICC treasurer.

While partymen wait for the PCC8217;s next move, it is the actions of former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela that are attracting attention. Vaghela is trying to mediate between the two groups. But some party leaders suspect that Vaghela, who had merged his Rashtriya Janata Party with the Congress last year, has donned the mantle of peacemaker only to capture the party.8220;Ahmed Patel and Madhavsinh Solanki have exposed each other; they have blamed each other for the decline of the party. Taking advantage of this, Vaghela is now positioning himself to take over the Congress in the state,8221; said a party leader.

When Sonia visited Gujarat on May 7 last year, Vaghela had impressed her with his crowd gathering skills. He is generally credited for the Congress victory in three of the six seats to the Lok Sabha last year. He has remained in touch with Sonia all along. So, old-timers in the Congress see a threat in him.

Over the years, infighting has weakened the Gujarat Congress from within, and in recent years, it has lost elections at all levels, right from the Lok Sabha to panchayats. The BJP has eaten into the base of all the top leaders and none of them can even qualify to be called a regional satrap.

Look at the Solanki group. It has been blaming the C.D. Patel-Amarsinh combine for all the party8217;s ills and claims that Solanki alone has grassroots support. But how has the group performed in elections? Solanki8217;s father-in-law, Ishwarbhai Chavda lost his traditional Anand seat in the Lok Sabha elections last year. Solanki8217;s candidate in Bhadran Assembly by-election, part of his district, lost to a Congress rebel who was denied the ticket at Solanki8217;s behest. None of Solanki8217;s key supporters, like B.K. Gadhvi, a former union minister, or Navin Shastri, a former state minister, can be considered a sure winner anywhere in the state.

And what about Ahmed Patel, who has held high offices in the party in Delhi? He belongs to Bharuch, yet even his supporters acknowledge that he cannot win in his hometown. PCC president C D Patel, who is Ahmed Patel8217;s man, lost in the last assembly elections and his hometown Navsari was the hub of Sangh Parivar hardliners during the anti-Christian incidents in the Dangs. Amarsinh Chaudhary fled from his home constituency Vyara in south Gujarat in the nineties and is now based in Khedbrahma, his wife8217;s stronghold.

That leaves the leaders who had moved to the Congress from Janata Dal, namely former chief minister Chhabildas Mehta, the late Chimanbhai Patel8217;s widow Urmilaben Patel and former deputy chief minister Narhari Amin. All big names, but also election losers who haven8217;t been able to resist the increasing BJP influence in their areas.

And how have they been serving Gujarat? The Solanki group claims its campaign is not against any individual, but is meant to revive the party. But for all the years that the Congress was on the downhill, they never thought it necessary to do anything. Only when Solanki was denied a third Rajya Sabha term and had no work left in Delhi did he turn towards Gujarat. In fact, the denial of the Rajya Sabha ticket sparked the latest round of infighting, because Solanki believed Ahmed Patel had manipulated it.As for the C.D.Patel-Amarsinh combine, they assembled a crowd of 20,000 to welcome Ahmed Patel when he visited Ahmedabad after the acceptance of his resignation by Sonia Gandhi. But, some few weeks ago, the same leaders could not mobilise more than 200 party workers for a demonstration against price rise in the city.

When the Congress decided to organise countrywide protests against the Gujarat government8217;s circular allowing its employees to participate in RSS activities, the PCC could manage to collect only a few hundred partymen for a demonstration in front of the State Assembly. And when Sonia Gandhi staged her much-publicised walk-out in Parliament against the circular, the Congress MLAs, led by Chaudhary, who had been suspended from the assembly for protesting against the circular in the House, apologised and returned to the chamber.

The latest round of internecine warfare in the Congress comes at a time when elections to the six municipal corporations, 25 district panchayats, 143 taluka panchayats and 9,000 gram panchayats are a few months away. While the BJP is getting its act together, the Congressmen seem to be gripped by adeathwish.

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