Chavda, a legislator from Anklav in Anand district, is returning as party president for the second time. Earlier, he had held the post from 2018 to2021
Ahmedabad: The All India Congress Committee on Thursday appointed party’s leader of legislative assembly Amit Chavda as Gujarat president.
Chavda, a legislator from Anklav in Anand district, is returning as party president for the second time. Earlier, he had held the post from 2018 to 2021. He had resigned following the party’s drubbing in local body polls.
The 49-year-old Chavda, a prominent OBC leader, succeeds Shaktisinh Gohil, a Rajya Sabha MP, who resigned from the post taking “moral responsibility” of party’s defeat in the bypolls held on Visavadar and Kadi seats. Congress failed to win any of the two seats
The party high command has also appointed its tribal leader and Khedbrahma MLA Dr Tushar Chaudhary as leader of legislative assembly. Chaudhary is also the son of Gujarat’s former Chief Minister Amarsinh Chaudhary.
The appointment of Chavda comes after a dozen state leaders met Leader of Opposition in the Parliament Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders. It is said that Chavda’s elevation comes at the cost of a faction of leaders who were against his leadership.
Chavda is a relative of former party chief and ex-union minister Bharatsinh Solanki and is the son of veteran Congress leader Ishwarbhai Chavda. Although Gujarat assembly doesn’t have a designated leader of opposition since Congress couldn’t get 10 per cent of the seats in the house of 182, Chavda has been aggressively targeting the BJP and is credited to have highlighted several financial scams including one in Dahod in which two sons of a BJP minister were arrested.
While the supporters of Chavda are upbeat about the change of leadership, it has also upset a group of senior leaders within the party. “It is going to break the Congress further before the 2027 assembly polls. It will give rise to factionalism
that already exists in the party. Gohil (Shaktisinh) left not because of the defeat in the bypoll but due to factionalism. The same faction has won today,” a party insider said. In the house of 182 Assembly seats, the Congress could win only 17 seat…seats in 2022 assembly polls and over the years it lost five of its MLA including local heavyweight Arjun Modhwadia to BJP.
