Ahmedabad: With the announcement that BJP president Amit Shah is contesting from Gandhinagar, replacing party veteran L.K. Advani, all eyes are on Gujarat.
While the BJP state unit is ready to take advantage of Mr Shah’s nomination, the Congress is re-working its strategy to counter the move. The Congress has announced four candidates for Gujarat and is expected to announce names for the remaining 22 seats any time now.
According to a senior party leader, the Congress is planning to create the kind of momentum it did for the 2017 elections, to counter the BJP’s ‘nationalism narrative’. The state party leadership is planning the campaign in the same way. The party is hopeful that Priyanka Gandhi’s visit will attract women voters.
The induction of Patidar leader Hardik Patel was a step in that direction. “The Hardik factor had helped us in the assembly elections. Now he is with the party so we are hoping to get full support from his team, the PAAS. We will raise the same issues of farmers’ distress and unemployment. The temple visits will also be a part of the campaign,” said a party leader.
It is learnt that the party has identified 11 seats where its chances are good, based on the 2017 results. Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana, Sabar-kantha, Surendranagar, Junagadh, Amreli and Anand are the seats where the party was leading in in Assembly segments. Jamnagar, Bharuch and Porbandar are three seats where it trailed the BJP by less than 20,000 votes.
If Hardik Patel contests from Jamnagar, the Congress can hope to get the Patidar vote in the entire Saurashtra region. In Amreli constituency, the party has five MLAs in the seven Assembly segments. The Anand seat has remained with the party, except in 2014, and this time, with the nomination of former state president Bharat Solanki, it is hoping to get the fortress back.
“We are fighting for all 26 seats, including Gandhinagar, from where Amit Shah is contesting. We will get maximum seats from Gujarat,” state party spokesperson Dr Manish Doshi said.
