Guj polls: Alliance with NCP a headache for Congress?

Vadodara: The Congress–NCP alliance for two seats of Akota in Vadodara city and Umreth in Kheda district is proving to be a headache for the Congress leadership after huge protest by party workers. The sitting Congress party MLA Lalsinh Vadodiya from Umreth quit the Congress and joined BJP after NCP candidate and president of Gujarat NCP unit Jayant Patel alias ‘Boski’ announced his decision to file his nomination papers for Umreth seat. The sitting NCP MLA Jayant Patel had represented the Sarsa seat in the outgoing Gujarat assembly, which has been abolished after delimitation. [caption id=“attachment_539127” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] About 250 Congress workers including Pragnesh Tewar and Congress party spokesman for Vadodara city unit of the Congress submitted their resignation letters to Narenda Rawat, president of the city unit of Congress party, saying they were resigning from the paty’s primary membership after it gave Akota seat to NCP candidate Nilesh Patel. Nilesh Patel has also filed his nomination papers for Akota seat and he thanked protesting Congress party workers for opposing his candidature from Akota and giving him state wide publicity, making him known all over the state. He also dared the Congress to give the NCP all 13 assembly seats of Vadodara district, including five seats from Vadodara city so that he could “ensure victory of all the NCP candidates on all the 13 seats”. Meanwhile, realizing Akota seat’s importance, the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee has requested state NCP president Jayant Patel to ask its candidate Nilesh Patel to withdraw his nomination papers from Akota. PTI