Filing his nomination papers for the Amreli Parliamentary constituency, Leader of Opposition in Gujarat Assembly Paresh Dhanani (43) on Wednesday said the district has taken lead in the fight for a regime change in Delhi. Interacting with media in Amreli after filing the nomination, the senior Congress leader said that the Constitution of the country was in grave danger. “Democracy has died. In such a scenario, Amreli has taken a lead in the fight for a regime change in Delhi,” Dhanani said. After much speculation, the Congress had late on Tuesday night announced Dhanani as the party candidate for the Amreli Lok Sabha seat. Before filing his nomination papers, Dhanani organised Jan Adhikar Sammelan, an election meeting in Amreli town. The Congress leader, who is the sitting MLA of Amreli Assembly constituency, also launched his Bharat Bachao Abhiyaan (save India campaign) on Wednesday. Click here for more election news Dhanani expressed confidence that the Congress will win all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat as, he said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had betrayed the trust the state had reposed in him in the 2014. “In 2014, the people of Gujarat had given all the 26 seats to Narendra Modi, considering him as one of them. However, today, Gujaratis are saying that chowkidar sahab, we had sent you to Delhi as one of us. But today, you have broken our trust. To teach him a lesson, the Congress will score grand victories in all the 26 Parliamentary constituencies in Gujarat,” said Dhanani. Amreli had emerged as the strongest Congress pocket in the 2017 Assembly election. The party had won all the five Assembly constituencies in the district, snatching away four seats from the BJP. Congress MLAs Virji Thummar and Pratap Dudhat, Thummar’s daughter Jeni and MLA J V Kakadiya’s wife were vying for a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha election from the seat, but the party gave Dhanani a chance to fight his maiden Parliamentary election in his 17-year-old political career. He had burst on the political scene of Gujarat by defeating senior BJP leader Parsottam Rupala form Amreli Assembly constituency in 2002. He failed to retain his seat in 2007 Assembly polls as he lost to Dilip Sanghani of the BJP. However, he avenged that defeat in 2012 by trouncing Sanghani, then agriculture minister of the state. In the 2017 Assembly election, he defeated Bavku Undhad, another prominent BJP leader from the same seat. Dhanani will take on two-time sitting BJP MP Naran Kachhadiya who is apparently the last major BJP figure in Amreli district.
