Driven to the wall after yet another video of him with a woman went viral, senior Gujarat Congress leader and former union minister Bharatsinh Solanki on Friday announced a sabbatical from active politics until his family issues were settled.
Causing a huge embarrassment to the Congress party ahead of the December Assembly elections, the video that surfaced on Wednesday shows his second wife Reshma thrashing the 69-year-old Solanki while pulling the hair of a 24-year-old girl who was found with him at the latter’s Anand bungalow.
Sources claim that Solanki’s decision to take a break from active politics follows the party high command taking a serious view of videos of his Casanova image popping up intermittently.
Speaking to mediapersons at a hotel in Ahmedabad, Solanki strongly denied that he was under pressure from the party leadership and maintained it was his own decision. “I am taking a break until my family issues are settled,” he said.
However, the former Gujarat Congress president said he would continue to do social work and unite various sections of the society for the party. Solanki added that he would be in live contact with the masses.
“I am not going to sit back at home during my break. I would travel all over Gujarat and work to join the OBCs, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities with the Congress party,” he said.
Solanki is the son of the late chief minister of Gujarat Madhavsinh Solanki, the proponent of the famous KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslims) formula, whose record of winning 149 out of 182 State Assembly seats remains unbroken.
He said he had spoken to Gujarat Congress chief Jagdish Thakor about his decision.
Solanki denied that he was with the other woman when his second wife barged into her home and claimed that he had gone there to have ice cream. His divorce petition is in the courts while he alleged that Reshma was trying to frame him with an eye on his family property.
“She had even tried to kill me by poisoning me with the ulterior motive to inherit my property since we have no children,” he alleged. This was seconded by Dilip Patel, who is Reshma’s maternal uncle and was there at the press conference.
Solanki, who has twice been the State Congress president, holds considerable influence in the party and his opinion is taken while deciding candidates for the elections. He said, “My second wife would constantly interfere with the party affairs and pressurise me in various things. For instance, why was Amit Chavda made State Congress president or why was a certain person given an election ticket.” Chavda is Solanki’s cousin.
Solanki, who was down with Covid-19 and post-Covid complications and fought a long 101-day battle in a hospital, said he did intend to marry again after the divorce proceedings with his second wife were complete.
He alleged, “When I was battling with Covid in a hospital in Anand, my wife came to me and insisted that I sign papers of my property. When my friends and everyone were praying for my recovery, my wife was more worried about when I would die so that she could inherit my property. That’s her only aim.”
Solanki said veteran Congress leader Ahmed Patel, who died last year of Covid, had arranged for my transfer to a private hospital in Ahmedabad because of Reshma’s “constant harassment”. He claimed, “But she chased the ambulance which was bringing me to Ahmedabad.”
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