Eye on LS polls, Congress appoints Shaktisinh Gohil as Gujarat unit chief

The party appointed former Chief Minister V Vaithilingam as the president of the Puducherry Congress.

Gohil is one of the most vocal critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat Congress. Over the years, the Congress has tried many experiments with leadership in Gujarat but nothing has worked so far; the state remains a BJP bastion.

The Congress had in 2018 appointed Amit Chavda, a young leader, as the Gujarat PCC president only to replace him in 2021 with veteran Jagdish Thakor (64) after Chavda resigned from the post in the wake of the Congress’s poor performance in the Gujarat local body polls that year.

Gohil is considered a close associate of the late Congress leader Ahmed Patel. He was the election agent of Patel in the closely fought Rajya Sabha election in 2017. He has an onerous task at hand — the revival of the party in the key state ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Varsha Gaikwad’s appointment is also significant as she will be responsible to lead the party into the BMC elections and the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress does not have a single MP in the six constituencies in Mumbai.

A four-term MLA from Mumbai’s Dharavi constituency, Gaikwad — a prominent Dalit face of the party — is the first woman president of the Congress’s Mumbai unit. She was a minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra and is known for her aggressive speeches.

The Congress also appointed Gujarat leader Deepak Babaria as the AICC in-charge of Haryana and Delhi in place of Gohil. Babaria was in-charge of Madhya Pradesh earlier.

In December last year, Kharge had replaced Vivek Bansal, in-charge of Haryana, with Gohil after Bansal’s role came under scanner following Ajay Maken’s surprise defeat in the Rajya Sabha polls in June.