Once Ahmed Patel’s seat, why Congress gave Bharuch to AAP

The discomfiture in the Congress camp in Gujarat was apparent when the seat-sharing agreement in five states / UTs with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls was announced by the two parties in Delhi on Saturday – an agreement that included the Bhavnagar and Bharuch seats, where the AAP has already announced its incumbent MLAs Umesh Makwana and Chaitar Vasava, respectively, as candidates.

The two seats have significance for the Congress as Bhavnagar district is home to Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) chief Shaktisinh Gohil, while Bharuch is the home turf of Congress stalwart late Ahmed Patel.

Even as Vasava reached out to Congress leaders and said the seat would be won “as a tribute” to Ahmed Patel, the latter’s son Faisal, who has gone public about his desire to contest from Bharuch, indicated that the issue has not been settled. He told reporters outside his Bharuch home, “Hum milke ladenge, lekin abhi baat khatam nahi hui hai, abhi kissa jari hai (We will fight together, but the issue is not over yet, the story is still unfolding).”

Minutes after the INDIA bloc announced Chaitar as its candidate, Vasava said, “I welcome the declaration of my candidature for the Bharuch Lok Sabha seat as part of the Congress-AAP’s INDIA tie-up in Gujarat. I thank Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul (Gandhi), Shaktisinh Gohil and the family of Ahmed Patel in Bharuch, including Mumtaz (Ahmed Patel’s daughter) and Faisal. I assure them all that we will take the Congress workers and leaders into confidence and proceed ahead. We will sit together and strategise for the elections. We will win Bharuch as a tribute to Ahmed Patel ji.”

The Bharuch seat, which has a sizeable number of tribal votes, has been represented by tribal