New Delhi:Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will campaign for party candidates in Gujarat’s Patan and Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur seats on April 29 where the grand old party is hopeful of reversing the 2019 trend, pinning hopes on the wave of anger in Rajput community against BJP leader and Union Minister Parshottam Rupala after his controversial remarks.
“Rahul Gandhi will address a rally in Patan on April 29,” Gujarat Congress chief Shakti Sinh Gohil told ETV Bharat. In Patan, Congress candidate Chandanji Thakor is pitted against BJP’s sitting MP Bharatsinghji Dabhi. In the previous 2019 national polls, the BJP had won all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat.
The former party’s chief’s visit comes at a time when the grand old party hopes to benefit from the widespread anger among the Rajput community against the BJP. “The Rajputs may be just 4-5 percent of the population but are considered influential. They are totally against the BJP and repeated apologies made by their leader Parshottam Rupala are proving to be ineffective. Initially, the state government banned protests in Ahmedabad, where community members planned to wear black bands on their arms. Later, they wore saffron bands and continued their protest to escape the ban,” Congress Working Committee member Jagdish Thakor told ETV Bharat.
The anger started after BJP’s Rajkot candidate Rupala made some controversial remarks against the Rajputs, but since then he has had to apologise twice as the community protests spread across the state over the past week. In Rajkot, several Rajput groups welcomed Congress nominee Paresh Dhanani by making him ride a horse, while in several other seats the community members have pledged to vote against the saffron party.