Gujarat Congress president Shaktisinh Gohil on Monday resigned from the post taking moral responsibility for the party’s defeat in Visavadar and Kadi by-polls.
Till the time a new president is appointed, MLA Shailesh Parmar has been given the responsibility of working president.
Gohil’s resignation came within hours of results of Visavadar and Kadi by-polls. In Visavadar, the Congress finished a poor third getting only 5,501 votes and losing it’s deposit. In Kadi, the 150-year-old party came second and lost by 35000 plus votes. However, it must be noted that neither of the seats were with Congress.
Also a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, Gohil convened a press conference at the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan in Ahmedabad to announce his resignation. He said his party workers and he have given their best but the defeat means they there was some lacunae at his end. “I should accept my moral responsibility,” he said.
He later announced his resignation on social media thanking party workers and the party leadership.
https://x.com/shaktisinhgohil/status/1937103298001006794
The party workers put in hard work and the way they fought, the credit goes to them, he said. Gohil, however, stressed that he takes the responsibility of the loss and has resigned.
The Congress leader said that he sent his resignation to the national party president Mallikarjun Kharge and also informed him about the alternate arrangement made till the new president was appointed.
“The results have not come as desired,”Gohil said.
Asked if his resignation would adversely impact the restructuring that has been going on in the party’s Gujarat unit, Gohil replied that it won’t and went on to say that he was not going away anywhere and he would serve the Congress as a disciplined party worker.
Only a couple of days ago, the local leadership at the district levels was revamped and new faces were brought in. This was after an announcement of revamping was made by party leader Rahul Gandhi at the party’s national convention in Ahmedabad in April. Later in the same month, Gandhi launched “Sangathan Sirjan Abhiyan” from Gujarat. This, coinciding with party president Mallikarjun Kharge’s announcement of for 2025 to be the “year for organisational reforms”.
In the run up to 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Gohil was appointed the party’s Gujarat unit president in June 2023.
Sources told Vibes of India that even after the 2024 elections, he had expressed the desire of stepping down as the state party president.
In the recent past, Congress leader and Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani had been alleging that the party leaders in Gujarat. were not taking stand for atrocities against the Dalits.
However, both the cases that Mevani had pointed out as atrocities against the Dalits did not fall in that category.
Mevani was also upset over the party leadership in the state not kicking out leaders, who directly or indirectly supported the Congress. He was demanding action.
Gandhi during his last two visits made it clear that such leaders had no place in the party.
Gohil’s resignation has come in as a shocker for the party men in the state.
Having a clean image and no faction of his own, he has been a former minister in Gujarat and is currently member of the Public Accounts Committee. He has held several positions during his political career.
When asked, Gohil told the media that he never hankered after any position. He said about 31 years ago, in 1994, he had resigned as a Minister when his constituency was not given a medical college.
“It was my government and I had resigned because it was my moral responsibility that my constituency got a government college. I resigned, left my official bungalow and was absolutely okay with it because like my party, I believe in the concept of moral responsibility “, he said, adding change was the only permanent phenomenon of life. Gohil said he looked forward to working as a Congress worker under a new Gujarat Congress President.
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