Former Gujarat Chief Minister Shankersinh Vaghela ‘Bapu’s presence with senior Congress leader Bharatsinh Solanki has once again fuelled the rumours of Bapu’s re-entry into Congress.
Sources claim that except for Bharatsinh, no one in the Party appears inclined to have Bapu back in the party fold. The Congress High Command staunchly believes that Vaghela breathed fresh life into the BJP in 2017.
On his 77th birthday on July 21, 2017, during a rally in Gandhinagar Bapu had announced that “My party (Congress) has shown me the door”, just before the crucial Rajya Sabha polls. His two-decade odd-long association with the political party had ended and he had quit all party posts and also as leader of Opposition in Gujarat.
In 2019, had joined the NCP led by Sharad Pawar. But in June 2020, owing to certain differences, Vaghela quit the NCP as well, and soon he had formed the Praja Shakti Democratic Party (PSDP).
Ever since Vaghela has been eyeing a comeback into the Congress party. On February 3, 2021, Vaghela had issued a statement in which he had claimed that ‘many Congress workers’ were urging him to return to the party. He had said that he was ready to return to the party without any pre-conditions, to fight the ruling party BJP in Gujarat.
In the statement issued in February 2021, Vaghela had mentioned, “Many Congress leaders have been insisting that I should join the Congress. I am ready to join the party without any pre-conditions to fight the BJP. I will meet Sonia ji and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi, before making the final decision.”
However, contrary to his statement, members of the Congress party in the state have termed his ‘return’ to the party as ‘rumours’ only.
Background
Shankersinh Vaghela had flagged off his political career with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After the BJP came to power in 1995 in Gujarat they chose Keshubhai Patel as the CM instead of Vaghela. This irked Vaghela who then engineered a split in the BJP party in the state and rose to the post of CM in 1996, with Congress’s support from the outside.
Later he joined Congress and during the Manmohan Singh-led government, Vaghela was appointed as the Textile Minister. He had also served as Congress’s state unit president and Leader of the Opposition in Gujarat Assembly.
However, the 81-year-old had on his birthday July 21, 2021, signalled that he was ‘retiring permanently from politics. In his opinion the BJP is a ‘traitor’s party’ and that he would never join them. Retaining his interest in the Congress party he said, “I am still in touch with the local leaders of the Congress party but not Sonia ji or Rahul Gandhi.”
