Gandhinagar: Bharatsinh Solanki, president of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC), is likely to be replaced soon by the party high command.
Solanki, however, has denied that he has resigned. Top sources in the party have confirmed that Bharatsinh Solanki met the Congress president on Monday and offered to quit citing personal reasons. The Congress, sources say, is yet to take a decision on his offer to quit.
On his return from New Delhi on Monday night, Bharatsinh Solanki said, “After the 2017 Assembly election, I had accepted moral responsibility for the failure of the Congress to win the election and I had offered to resign at that time. However, there is no truth in speculation that I have resigned today.”
When asked as to whether he had offered to quit because he was unhappy over not being given a RS berth by the Congress from Gujarat, Solanki said: “There is no truth in this speculation.”
It is no secret that Solanki was keen to be nominated by the party to the Rajya Sabha and the decision to field Naran Rathwa and Amee Yagnik did not go down too well with Solanki.
Meanwhile, providing another perspective to the development, sources close to Bharatsinh Solanki stated that he is keen on contesting the 2019 general election from the Anand seat in Central Gujarat and hence has asked the party high command to relieve him of his responsibilities as state party chief so that he can spend more time preparing for the Lok Sabha election.
News18 has learnt that Bharatsinh, along with his family, is likely to be out of the country for the next couple of months.
Another cause of disgruntlement for Bharatsinh Solanki is the meteoric rise of younger leaders like Paresh Dhanani and Alpesh Thakore in the Congress hierarchy.
With the budget session of the Gujarat assembly presently on, Dhanani, Thakore and other MLAs have been hogging the limelight, while the role of the state party chief has diminished considerably.
Congress sources said that Dhanani is perceived to be close to the Arjun Modhwadia faction within the Congress party. Regional factors too are at work, with both Dhanani and Modhvadia hailing from Saurashtra region, while Bharatsinh Solanki is from Anand in Central Gujarat.
In the run-up to the Gujarat assembly elections, there were two occasions when fake resignation letters addressed by Bharatsinh Solanki to the party president were floated on social media.
On both occasions, Solanki had denied that he had resigned and had lodged police complaints against unidentified persons for the mischief, calling it the handiwork of the BJP IT cell.
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