Vaghela set for ghar wapsi?

Cong veteran unfollows Rahul on Twitter, deletes anti-BJP tweets

With just seven months to go for the Assembly polls in Gujarat, trouble continues to mount for Congress in the politically-crucial state. Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela, upset over not being “officially” projected as the party’s face for the forthcoming elections, has taken on Congress scion Rahul Gandhi head on and may take a call on his association with the party.

Mr Vaghela has unfollowed Mr Rahul on Twitter and also deleted all his antiBJP comments. Speculations are rife that Mr Vagehla could be looking at the options of returning to his original outfit BJP. Of course, to make himself look neutral at this juncture he removed everyone whom he had earlier been following. His Twitter account at this juncture shows “0 followers”.

It may be recalled that since the first week of April this year, Mr Vagehla’s followers had unleashed a major social media campaign, particularly on Twitter, for projection of “Bapu”, (Vaghela fondly called by his followers) as the chief ministerial face of the Congress for Assembly polls. A section of state Congress MLAs also mounted pressure on the high command to “officially” name Mr Vaeghla as the CM candidate. After Mr Ashok Ghelot took over as the new Congress general secretary in-charge of Gujarat there were speculations that the party high command could throw it’s weight behind Mr Vaghela.

It was learnt that Mr Vaghela had also met Mr Gandhi and urged him to project him as the party’s face in the state. During the first week of May, Mr Gandhi held a rally in Narmada district of south Gujarat which was attended by Mr Vaghela and other senior leaders. After that a strategy meeting was held in Delhi chaired by the Congress vice-president which was again attended by Mr Vagehla among other senior state leaders.

Indications kept pouring in that Mr Vagehla was all set to be named as the campaign chief or CM candidate. Four days back, Mr Ghelot announced that the Congress would go to the polls without any CM candidate.