Ahmedabad, 29 December 2011

Six Gujarat Congress MPs were absent during crucial voting in Lok Sabha on December 27th. During their interaction with curious media persons over phone call, four of them have narrated school-child like reasons for their absence.

Dinsha Patel(Kheda)

His daughter’s wedding was scheduled on 26th and reception party was held on 27th. He had arranged the dates as per the earlier schedule of parliament session. However when the session was extended for two days, Dinsha wrote a letter and sought permission to remain absent. Dinsha was expecting presence of party leaders, MPs and others from Delhi, but all calculations went wrong due to extension of the session.

Jagdish Thakor (Patan)

His 32-year-old son in law died in a road accident in Amdavad’s Naroda last week. Therefore he was absent in Lok Sabha. He wrote a letter to party chief whip showing inability to remain present. He also talked with the chief whip over a phone call and told that if his presence was needed he would come to Delhi on party’s call.

Viththalbhai Radadia (Porbandar)

He said he was unwell. He added that he had anticipated the voting on 29th and on 27th.

Kunvarji Bavalia (Rajkot)

He says he was busy in counter-fast against Narendra Modi’s Sadbhavna fast in Rajkot. After completing the fast programme when he was on way to reach Ahmedabad airport, he was informed that his wife had injury. As he stayed for treatment of his wife, he missed scheduled flight to Delhi. He said the whip was for presence and not for voting.

Vikram Madam (Jamnagar)

Madam says he was ill for last two days and was limited to bed, therefore couldn’t move to Delhi.

Kishan Patel (Valsad)

It is surprising that though Kishan Patel was in Delhi, but was not present during voting.

It is reported that the party will issue show-cause notice to four MPs(baring Dinsha and Thakor) who were absent without permission. Apart from other reasons, the absent MPs also say that they were busy in Gram Panchayat elections. Congress has 10 MPs from Gujarat, of them 6 were absent which comes toas high as 60%.