When Gujarat’s opposition leader Shaktisinh Gohil entered the stage of Gujarat government organized district level Gujarat’s golden jubilee celebration public function in Sihor yesterday, crowd was jubilant witnessing rare moments of Gujarat politics when state level Congress leader was on Narendra Modi’s stage sitting along with him.

An MLA from Bhavnagar constituency, Shaktisinh Gohil is leader of opposition in Gujarat assembly. He is ranked as a cabinet minister according to government protocol. According to Congress protocol he is one of the top two leaders in Gujarat. He uses laptop, can speak gentle English, surfs internet, goes to watch latest movies in theaters wearing t-shirt and jeans. He is considered as quite a much different politician in Congress and in Gujarat.

According to protocol his name and his speech schedule was mentioned by district administration in invitation card of the function. But most of the people believed that as per the tradition that is going on for last several years, Congress would boycott this function too organized by state government.

However amidst great surprise when Shaktisinh Gohil was seen entering the stage, there was a cheer on the faces of almost all the people present there.

Shaktisinh in his speech said that this function was organized on the issue of Gujarat’s golden jubilee celebration and for Gujarat’s self respect and development, they from Congress party were always ready to extend support to the ruling party.

Gohil in his speech passed a taunting message to Modi and said “Gujarat has always been an enterprising state with continuous pursuit, spirit and saga of development. Only one person(Narendra Modi) should not always be credited for the development that Gujarat has achieved. Rulers do change time to time and under different rulers, speed of development may fluctuate too but finally people of Gujarat should be credited for state’s successes.”

Continuing his taunting words by giving the example of earlier Bhavnagar state Diwan, Shaktisinh Gohil said “In former Bhavnagar state, Gaga Oza(Gaurishanka Udayshankar Oza) was so dynamic, popular and successful administrator, that people used to call the state of Bhavnagar as ‘Gaga Oza’s Bhavnagar’. When such talks were noticed by Gaga Oza himself, he shuffled the words and corrected as ‘Bhavnagar’s Gaga Oza’. He insisted that he was because of people of Bhavnagar and Bhavnagar was not because of him.”

Shaktisinh’s presence on the stage of Gujarat government function was significant because some Congress leaders have publicly criticized Modi’s Gujarat golden jubilee functions declaring them as wastage of time, money and district administration. Some Congress leaders had also said in their statements earlier that Modi was organizing and attending such functions to make a ground for next parliament elections.

However common man present in Sihor function believed that Shaktisinh’s presence in state government’s function was wise step and it would generate goodwill for Shaktisinh in particular and Congress in general.