At least 70 candidates, the most of any of Gujarat’s four main city units, including past MLAs, mayors, and deputy mayors, have shown interest in serving as the BJP president of Surat. So far in the state’s ongoing organisational reform, the party hasn’t been able to choose its city unit leaders.
Seventeen members of the Surat district submitted applications to be the district president. According to reports, Ahmedabad city and district have received 25 and 24 proposal forms, respectively. Fifty-five members in Vadodara and 54 at the district level have shown interest in the position of city president. The forms for the presidents of the city and district units in Rajkot were 33 and 24, respectively.
A national daily mentioned that Union Minister for Jal Shakti, C R Paatil was in Ahmedabad and that the names would be picked and announced shortly. The names were supposed to be decided on January 10.
To accept the candidate forms, the state BJP sent observers to various districts and municipal corporations on January 4. After discussions with local BJP MPs and MLAs, the teams completed their tasks on the same day and compiled a list.
According to sources, this list was submitted to the state BJP parliamentary board a few days ago for their final decision.
Former Surat MLA and Gujarat BJP vice-president Janak Bagdanawala is also a candidate for the position of Surat city president. Both the rival and Paatil camps have candidates interested in the positions. Additionally, four women submitted their applications for the city BJP position.
The battle is between selecting people who are native to Surat and those who are migrants from Saurashtra in Paatil’s home field of Surat, where former Ahmedabad MLA Rakesh Shah, Panchmahal organisational secretary Kuldeep Solanki, Chhota Udaipur party in-charge Ramesh Ukani, and Surat vice-president Pankaj Desai were told to accept the forms.
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