‘Running a party not part-time job… You don’t know even own workers… unable to tell donkey from horse’: Ex-Gujarat Cong chief Arjun Modhwadia

VETERAN POLITICIAN Arjun Modhwadia, who has been the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee president and Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader, defected to the BJP recently. Now he is the BJP candidate for the by-election to the Porbandar Assembly seat, which fell vacant after he moved from the Congress to the BJP. In an interview to The Indian Express, he talks about the problems in his former party, and his new political course. Excerpts:

When a person deserts one party and joins another, there will naturally be some resistance. That’s human nature. For years, I fought against the BJP with all sincerity. But to my surprise and that of the entire state, it welcomed me with sincerity and affection into its fold. Neither in public nor privately has there been any protest. The reason for that is people in Porbandar and the BJP have deep faith in decisions taken by the party leadership.

So, even former minister Babu Bokhiria, who was my rival in successive elections, has welcomed me… The reason is that a political worker thinks of the changes he can bring in people’s lives. Position, prestige, etc, are byproducts.

When Modi became CM (of Gujarat), he tried to bring about a change and managed to do that. Now, he is trying to do the same in the country.

Not in my experience. No one in the government has ever said ‘No’ to me whenever I have approached them with issues, big or small, but if one wants to bring about a big change, it is natural that you want both governments (state and the Centre) by your side. Take for example the bullet train project. It got a booster dose when Narendrabhai moved to Delhi and a BJP government continued in Gujarat… The Statue of Unity became a reality because the (Central) government backed it