CONGRESS SET TO WREST MEHSANA, MANSA LOCAL BODIES FROM BJP

AHMEDABAD: Within a month of getting its highest tally in Gujarat assembly polls in more than two decades, the Congress is poised to regain control of Mehsana municipality and Mansa taluka panchayat from the BJP. Both locations are of significant symbolic importance for the BJP.

Mehsana is the home district of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Gujarat’s deputy chief minister Nitin Patel, while Mansa is the home district of BJP president Amit Shah. The Congress had won elections to the municipality and the panchayat in 2015, but lost power after a spate of defections. It has scripted a turnaround by wooing back the defectors in Mehsana, and getting members who deserted it in Mansa legally disqualified.

“Based on a (Gujarat) HC order, which we received on Friday, 10 Congress members at Mansa who defected to the BJP have been disqualified. In the next general board meeting, the Congress will have eight members, and the BJP six. The Congress will claim the majority,’’ Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said on Thursday.

In Mehsana, Congress lost power a year-and-a-half after winning the civic polls. Amid infighting, 10 of its councillors sided with the BJP to form the governing board. Raiben Patel, who left the Congress along with nine party councillors, went on to become the municipality president with the support of BJP councillors in mid-2017.

However, the honeymoon did not last. Raiben and the other nine rebel councillors returned to the Congress fold. Simultaneously, BJP councillors were removed from all municipality committees.

MEHSANA IS THE HOME DISTRICT OF PM MODI AND GUJARAT’S DEPUTY CM NITIN PATEL, WHILE MANSA IS THE HOME DISTRICT OF BJP PRESIDENT AMIT SHAH