The groundswell at Netrang in Bharuch on Saturday turned into a political spectacle as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers gathered with their yellow and blue party flags around a cutout of Rahul Gandhi while waiting for his arrival along with Congress workers. On the third day of the Gujarat leg of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, as it proceeded from Bodeli in Chhota Udepur district to Rajpipla in Narmada and then to Netrang in Bharuch, the party flags of Congress and AAP were seen together. However, an undercurrent of differences was unmissable. Faisal Patel and his sister Mumtaz Siddiqui, the son and daughter of late Congress veteran Ahmed Patel, remained conspicuous by their absence. Both had earlier openly expressed their disappointment over AAP Dediapada MLA and party's Gujarat working president Chaitar Vasava contesting from Bharuch, their father's stronghold, as part of the INDIA seat-sharing deal for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Speaking with The Indian Express, Faisal Patel on Saturday said, “I am in Delhi, taking care of my mother and my daughter as I am a single parent. According to me, faith comes first, then family, followed by other things." The on-ground camaraderie was also amiss on the bright red jeep that Rahul Gandhi rode on Saturday. Even as Chaitar stood behind Gandhi, the Congress MP did not acknowledge him in public while he interacted with locals in Netrang. On Thursday, when the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra entered the state in Jhalod in Dahod district, Gandhi did not mention AAP Gujarat chief Isudan Gadhvi and national joint secretary Gopal Italia in his address. He shared the stage with the AAP leaders and even accepted the customary tribal bow and arrow memento from the duo. In Netrang, on Saturday, after he was done interacting with locals, Gandhi turned around to greet Chaitar, who had climbed onto the jeep during the Yatra, and accepted a cotton thread garland. However, in his pitch to the crowd to bring back Congress to power, Gandhi made no mention of ally AAP or its Lok Sabha candidate standing by his side. Rajendrasinh Rana, the Bharuch district Congress unit chief, was also on the jeep with Chaitar but the two leaders did not exchange even a glance. Earlier in Bodeli in Chhota Udepur on Saturday morning, Congress leader Arjun Rathwa and AAP leader Radhika Rathwa were seen giving joint interviews about the INDIA bloc. They maintained that they were "following the decision" of their respective party high commands. Incidentally, Radhika Rathwa is a former Congress leader and daughter of former Congress MP Amarsinh Rathwa, who switched over to the AAP ahead of the 2022 assembly polls and even contested the Pavi Jetpur constituency. Arjun Rathwa, who was among the first few members of the AAP in Gujarat, recently switched over to the Congress citing a "lack of leadership and direction in AAP". "The party high command has made the decision and we will abide by it. While the Congress will campaign for our leaders- Chaitar Vasava in Bharuch and Umesh Makwana in Bhavnagar -- the AAP workers will also join the Congress in its campaign in the remaining 24 Lok Sabha seats of Gujarat," Radhika Rathwa said. For the Congress leaders in Gujarat, accepting the alliance with AAP has been tough. Fielding questions about the Congress's alliance with the AAP, which the Congress has termed as the 'B team' of the BJP in the past, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee chief Shaktisinh Gohil on Friday in Godhra said, "We are soldiers of the party and we have accepted the decision of our party and we will follow the decision. The BJP was the party that said that the father-daughter duo (Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti) of the PDP had ruined Kashmir but when the opportunity came, the BJP first entered into an alliance with Mufti Mohammad and then with Mehbooba Mufti. We will remain the big brother (to AAP) in Gujarat." Reiterating his demand for the caste census, Gandhi on Saturday asserted, “They (BJP government) don’t share the details about caste.. they don’t want to share details of your population in the country as they are concerned about the calculation about caste census. If the caste-based census, which is our demand, is done, everybody will know how many people are tribals, Dalits, of the general category, and others. We have two demands before the government. The first is caste-based census and Economic or Financial survey." On Sunday, Gandhi is scheduled to take a tour of Mandvi. He will then visit Sardar Ashram at Bardoli in Surat district before going to Tapi.
