It is often that the Congress is being written off in Gujarat — and sometimes not wrongly so — but the party has always returned not less than 50 legislators to the State Assembly in the face of the best of saffron wave like 2002. One reason for this are its die-hard loyalist legislators like Geniben Thakor from Vav constituency in the border district of Banaskantha.
Forty-three now, but she became a first-time Congress legislator by defeating sitting BJP minister Shankar Chaudhary in 2017 by nearly 7,000 votes. All attempts by the BJP and later by turncoat Alpesh Thakor to get her into BJP failed. Though believed to be close to Alpesh Thakor at one time, Geniben campaigned against Alpesh Thakor when he quit the Congress to contest on a BJP ticket and lost. She had declared that no money could change her Congress loyalty.
And this meaty woman exposed the illicit liquor industry operating through her Banaskantha district that borders Rajasthan and several trucks and vans filled with liquor gets into the dry Gujarat. Geniben went at 3 a.m. and got seized a huge consignment of liquor entering the Gujarat border in a pick-up van.
She also got a video made of this liquor consignment that she seized without any police help but with the help of Youth Congress workers. Albeit, the police also booked some Youth Congress boys for beating up the driver of the pick-up van.
The gusty Geniben relayed the entire story of her early morning raid on the floor of the State Assembly on March 15 in the presence of Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi and Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, who holds the full-fledged home portfolio.
She asserted that the liquor stock entered the Gujarat border with full blessings of the State Police at the border checkpost. Not only this, she named an infamous bootlegger of Vadodara and two bootleggers of Bhabhar town, to which she also belongs, on the floor of the Assembly and alleged that the police was hand in glove with them and allowed entry of tonnes of liquor into Gujarat.
Geniben, who has studied up to second year in a college, said she knew no action would be taken by the government and so she herself conducted the raid at 3 a.m. on Friday.
The woman legislator’s action galvanized the district police also. Banaskantha DSP Tarun Duggal told Vibes of India that two police complaints had been registered in this incident near Deodar, including one against the driver of the pick-up van. The driver belongs to Rajasthan and the police are still inquiring where all he was supposed to deliver the stock.
