Baghela Of Gujarat Joins NCP
- 29-Jan-2019
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Ahmedabad: Shankersinh Vaghela, 78, is a never-say-die politician, who flashed on the national radar when he split the BJP in 1996, bringing down its first government in Gujarat led by Keshubhai Patel, to form his own government backed by the Congress. For Sharad Pawar, whose NCP began as a breakaway group of the Congress and is now looking for a toehold in Gujarat, Vaghela is a suitable bet.
After the bitterly fought Rajya Sabha election following a coup in the party purportedly engineered by Vaghela, the Congress does not trust him — and the BJP does not need him. In the NCP, Vaghela sees a party that has always been warm to him, and as perhaps the only way for him to come back into national electoral politics. In fact, the Congress attributes its impressive showing in the 2017 Assembly elections to Vaghela’s exit, and its decision not to ally with the NCP.
In 2017, the Congress posted its first impressive result since 1995, winning 77 seats, (now 76 after the defection of Kunvarji Bavaliya), while the BJP got its lowest, at 99.
Joining the pitch for a non-BJP front at the national level, Vaghela hopes to get a ticket — and perhaps win the seat if the Congress-NCP alliance revives ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
In 1999, Vaghela had merged his outfit, Rashtriya Janata Party, with the Congress — and become the first leader with an RSS background to be president of the Gujarat PCC. He went on to become a Union Minister in the 2004 UPA government.
The Congress-NCP alliance thrived in Gujarat while he held high posts in the Congress. But the Congress began to lose ground with the rise of Narendra Modi — and in 2014, it could not win even a single seat in Lok Sabha.
