By IANS,
Ahmedabad : Former union textile minister Shankersinh Vaghela, who assumed charge as chairman of the Congress’ election campaign committee for the 2012 Gujarat assembly polls, Sunday predicted early elections in the state.
“Chief Minister Narendra Modi will resort to this stratagem to find a way out of the mess he finds himself in,” he told media persons here, in his first media interaction after taking charge of his new assignment.
Vaghela said that an election earlier than scheduled is very much on the cards and therefore his party has also decided to go into combative poll mode early.
On the sidelines after his defeat in the last elections that he contested from Godhra, Vaghela was recently brought back to head this key position with enhanced powers.
Addressing a joint press conference along with start party chief Arjun Modvadia and Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil, he made it clear that it would be “Team Congress” that would take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) head-on.
?We plan to expose the double-faced approach of this government which talks of a strong Lokpal at the centre and resorts to desperate measures to scuttle the appointmentof Lokayukta in its own state. The government reeks of corruption and maladministration and so the move to avoid a Lokayukta. Obviously the experience of the corruption-infested BJP government in Karnataka and its fate at the hands of the Lokayukta must be the inspiration to avoid the Lokayukta in the state,” Vaghela added.
The former BJP leader who rebelled to bring down the first BJP government in the state and formed one at the head of a regional outfit supported by the Congress, is considered as the best bet to take on the Narendra Modi-led government in Gujarat.
Vaghela, who has been given a free hand in the planning of his election campaign strategy, made it clear that the party would start its campaigning on the first day of Navaratri, which falls on Sep 29, from the temple of Ashapura mata (a local deity) in Kutch. A public rally will be organized at Bhuj on that day.
The Congress leaders will visit the Ambaji temple on the next day, which would be the second day of Navaratri and then address another rally at Palanpur, said Vaghela.
We have selected Kutch because it represents the epicentre of corruption in BJP regime in Gujarat, he added.