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Congress appoints Amit Chavda as legislature party leader in Gujarat
The decision comes more than a month after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered a historic victory in the Gujarat assembly elections 2022 by winning 156 seats
The Congress on Tuesday appointed Amit Chavda, a five-time legislator and former Gujarat Congress president as its legislature party leader in the state.
The party also appointed Shailesh Parmar, a four-time MLA who won the 2022 elections from Ahmedabad’s Danilimbda seat as the deputy leader.
The decision comes more than a month after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered a historic victory in the Gujarat assembly elections 2022 by winning 156 seats.
The Congress finished a distant second with 17 seats while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) bagged five seats. Three seats went to independents and one to the Samajwadi Party.
Also Read: Congress leaders to meet in Gujarat for evaluation, will also decide of LoP
According to the rule, the opposition parties are supposed to appoint their respective leaders in the House within 30 days of swearing-in of the newly-elected members of the legislative assembly.
Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly in Gujarat were sworn in on December 19, 2022.
The Congress is one seat short of the 10% mark required for it to choose the leader of opposition (LoP) in the new assembly.
“We have appointed our party leader in Gujarat and now it is up to the ruling BJP whether to allow him to be the leader of opposition or not,” said Manish Doshi, a spokesperson for Gujarat Congress.
AICC general secretary KC Venugopal conveyed the appointments to GPCC chief Jagdish Thakor in a letter on Monday.
Last month, the party had passed a resolution unanimously entrusting the decision of these appointments to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
AICC in-charge of Gujarat, Raghu Sharma had resigned from the post after Congress was decimated to its worst ever defeat in Gujarat state elections, winning only 17 seats (out of 182), down by 60 seats as compared to 2017 when it won 77 seats.
A fact-finding committee constituted by Congress chief Kharge, is on a two-day visit to Gujarat from January 16 where they will meet the leaders to evaluate the results of the elections.
The committee, headed by former Maharashtra Minister Nitin Raut with two members Shakeel Ahmad Khan, and Lok Sabha member from Odisha, Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka will submit a report to Congress president within two weeks.
About 14-15 Gujarat Congress leaders have written to the leadership on various issues faced by the party in 2022 elections including anti-party activities by some leaders, lack of proper campaigning and lack of response to BJP’s massive campaign.
In the Gujarat assembly elections held in December 2022, Chavda won from Anklav seat in Anand, defeating BJP’ Gulabsinh Padhiyar.
Parmar, 53, won his fourth election in December 2022 elections from the Danilimda seat, reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, by defeating BJP’s Naresh Vyas.
