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Cong. dissidents ransack party office in Gujarat

By Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD NOV. 25. Armed policemen were guarding the Gujarat State Congress headquarters here as groups of dissident party workers, enraged over the distribution of ticket, ransacked the office.

With most of the senior leaders still in Delhi, the office staff had to face the wrath of the workers who broke windowpanes and shouted slogans against the leadership for "showing favouritism.''

About 25 party corporators of the Ahmedabad municipal corporation and most of the office-bearers of the city district Congress committee have resigned from various posts they were holding in protest against the refusal of a nomination to the city district president, Rajkumar Gupta, who is also the chairman of the co-ordination committee between the party and the municipal corporation board controlled by the Congress.

The irate party corporators also ransacked the party office forcing the staff to lock themselves inside before the police were called. Another group of protesters opposing the nomination of Pradip Ruhwala for the Ellisbridge seat kept shouting slogans. The police had a tough time in preventing them from entering the office to press their demand for nomination of Kalpesh Patel, who has also filed his papers besides the official nominee.

Similar attacks on the GPCC office by the dissatisfied elements were witnessed during the last few days. Following a similar attack, the party changed its candidate for the Kalupur seat at the last moment, re-nominating the sitting member of the dissolved House, Farookh Sheikh, whose supporters had ransacked the party office on Saturday.

The agitated party workers alleged that putting up relatively "weak'' candidates for the Ellisbridge and Dariapur-Kazipur seat, for which Mr. Gupta had staked his claim but was given to little-known Nishaben Rajput, wife of a Madhavsinh Solanki supporter and one of the PCC secretaries Surendra Rajput, was part of a "pact'' between some Congress leaders and the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi.

Similar protests were also reported from Vadodara, Surat, Godhra and other places against the distribution of party ticket.

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