Rahul to visit Modi bastion

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People take part in a rally in support of united Andhra Pradesh in Anantapur district on Tuesday. — PTI

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s two-day visit to Gujarat in the third week of this month could create more problems for the beleaguered chief minister Narendra Modi, who is fighting a battle with his own party leaders to project him as the BJP’s PM candidate.
Mr Gandhi’s visit to Rajkot and Ahmedabad on September 23 and 24 is expected to enthuse the rank and file in the state Congress.
“Rahul Gandhi will address meetings of the party workers, including legislators and MPs, during the visit,” Congress sources said. This will be his first visit to the state after the state Assembly polls, they pointed out.
The state Congress has not been able to check Mr Modi, who has created many rivals in his own BJP and Sangh Parivar since 2002.
If former BJP chief ministers Keshubhai Patel and Suresh Mehta had to quit the party due to his authoritarian style of functioning, the VHP leader Praveen Togadia got isolated after challenging Mr Modi.
But the state Congress has failed to gain mileage out of it.
Mr Modi, who has antagonised senior BJP leaders L.K. Advani, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and others for different reasons, is keen to become the BJP’s PM candidate.
Former MP and senior BRP leader from Maharashtra Prakash Ambedkar suggested Mr Modi to quit the chief ministership and start working from the BJP headquarters in New Delhi if wants to be the BJP’s PM candidate.
He should not function from Gandhinagar and New Delhi simultaneously after his appointment as the BJP’s election campaign committee chief, Mr Ambedkar viewed.
Meanwhile, the Congress on Tuesday used the resignation of D.G. Vanzara to attack Mr Modi saying the IPS officer’s statement proves that fake encounters were a policy of the state government. Party spokesperson Sandeep Dikshit said the statements of Mr Vanzara after he tendered his resignation show that “everybody, including the highest post in that state, was in conscious knowledge of what was happening.”