Disgruntled Gujarat Congress leaders meet at Arjun Modhwadia's house, express dissatisfaction about party's state leadership

Ahmedabad: Several disgruntled Congress leaders and legislators met at the residence of senior leader Arjun Modhwadia in Ahmedabad late Wednesday night and expressed dissatisfaction about the party’s state leadership. The meeting followed the opposition party’s loss in Jasdan Assembly by-election. Speaking to the media later, many of those who attended the meeting hit out at state Congress chief Amit Chavda without naming him. [caption id=“attachment_1397559” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Arjun Modhwadia. AFP[/caption] Those present at Modhwadia’s house included MLAs Alpesh Thakor and Shailesh Parmar, former Lok Sabha member Dinsha Patel, former Rajya Sabha members Raju Parmar and Sagar Rayka and former state unit chief Siddharth Patel. Alpesh Thakor told reporters that the meeting was aimed at drawing the high command’s attention to “some lacuna” in the state leadership. “We strongly believe that importance should be given to experienced, committed and strong leaders who are known as mass leaders and who are fighting for people. We will communicate this to the central leadership,” he said. Without naming Chavda who is related to former state Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki, Thakor said a person is known by his work and not by the position he holds. “A person in a high post should take along every worker. The leadership has to do justice to all. But there exists some lacuna. We want to correct it,” Thakor added. Modhwadia said the meeting was meant to bring “capable” workers in the “mainstream” ahead of 2019 elections. “Since Lok Sabha polls are around the corner, we want to bring capable workers in the mainstream of party affairs. I am confident that the party will take this positively,” Modhwadia told PTI. “Due to (Congress chief) Rahul Gandhi’s efforts, we came close to victory in Assembly polls. But we lost eventually. So some of my friends decided to meet to find ways to bring about a change and find out shortcomings at the block level which led to our defeat,” said the senior leader. Another senior leader and MLA Shailesh Parmar said the meeting’s purpose was to “strengthen” the party. “We had gathered to discuss if there are any shortcomings at the higher level and make a representation to the party leadership about the same,” said former Union minister Dinsha Patel. The Congress recently lost a by-election at Jasdan in Rajkot district, a party stronghold. Kunvarji Bavaliya, the Congress MLA who joined the BJP, won on BJP’s ticket.