Ahmedabad:

Rahul comes, Rahul goes

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today kicked off the Gujarat poll campaign officially. State Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki who believes Congress has to go for soft Hindutva to do well in Gujarat, presented Lord Ganesha murti to Rahul Gandhi and declared auspicious beginning of campaign. The venue of Rahul’s programme was Sabarmati Riverfront event ground. As we mentioned yesterday, Congress had opposed the riverfront project for one or other reason when the project was under development by then Chief Minister Narendra Modi government in the State. Lately today Congress found Riverfront an ideal place for holding Rahul Gandhi’s function. Our some journalist friends said they didn’t like Rahul Gandhi’s utterance about media. Some journo friends also told that if there was rain today, the Congress function could be in trouble because it was open-to-sky event. The main part of function was anyway open to only Congress cadres. So this was yet another C to C, meaning Congress to Congress function. Couple and more  things that we observed. Rahul spoke in detail about importance of small businesses and mentioned that if Congress comes to power it will give bank loans to small businesses and apply cluster approach for their development. Now this is what the present government is already doing! What is PM Narendra Modi’s Mudra Yojana after all? And any visitor to Vibrant Gujarat summit exhibition would be knowing the cluster approach that the government has already put in practice. Then the other thing Rahul said was that highest corruption take place in land deals in India. He went on to say that the land of farmers is snatched away. This reminded us Robert Vadra who is facing lot of allegations regarding land grab of farmers. Rahul in his address covered the healthcare issue and said that when Ashok Gehlot was Chief Minister of Rajasthan he had facilitated health services for poor even in private hospitals through govt money. This reminded us Ashok Gehlot’s visit to Civil hospital in Ahmedabad way back in 2015 after he stepped down from the post of Chief Minister. Gehlot had visited Civil hospital in Gujarat because he had knowledge that most people from Southern Rajasthan(his state) used to come to this government facility in Gujarat for medical treatment when he was Chief Minister. Rahul covered other issues like demonetization, GST, farmers, tribal, employment, healthcare, education etc. While some issues raised were valid, what we overall found was, the issues Rahul was raising were mostly same old issues that Congress used to raise in earlier elections in Gujarat but didn’t achieve success. Say for example the Tata Nano issue! Congress has been raising it for last many many years, and now raising it again! Rahul also met professionals at same venue but in separate sessions. We spoke to one professional who was invited to the session. He said Congress is not likely to come to power in 2019 and therefore whatever Rahul was pronouncing to do if Congress was elected to power was not making sense at least for now. Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot, Madhusudan Mistry etc were other leaders present in the function.

Congress’s worries

Congress is very much worried about rebels that are likely to emerge  as threat for the party post ticket allocation. Ahmed Patel had in recent function in Surat had said that those denied party ticket are likely to be misused against congress in Gujarat polls by opponents on all 182 seats. He indicated that such rebel Congress men will be fielded against Congress by some party other than BJP to divide anti-incumbency votes. His indication was toward NCP or Shankersinh Bapu’s Jan Vikalp. In the past we have seen Congress State headquarters being ransacked by those who were denied tickets, just before the elections. In upcoming election, Ahmed Patel doubted there will be systematic attempt to rope in Congress rebels and divide anti-incumbency votes. Rahul Gandhi today went on to say that only one party man would get ticket to contest the election on assembly seat, but once Congress party is elected to power, all party workers will get place in government.

Another Gujarati news channel

Gujarat Chief Minister today formally inaugurated a new Gujarati news channel by Zee Group. The channel has been named as Zee Chovis Kalak. The news channel is one more in crowded Gujarati news TV channel market. The new channel claims it would not do crime show which is appreciable move. The news channel’s inauguration function was graced by Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, Zee owner Subhash Chandra who left he function early just after Chief Minister’s speech was over, Stat BJP chief, State BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya, ministers Shankar Chaudhary, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Rajya Sabha MP and Group President of Reliance Parimal Nathwani, Zydus group’s Pankaj Patel among others. However none from Congress was visible in the crowd! After completing the inauguration function at Karnavati Club on SG Highway, the Chief Minister visited Zee Chovis Kalak office near Prahlad Nagar. English daily DNA is also relocated to this office from its earlier place Divya Bhaskar building on SG Highway. DNA has been taken over by Zee group recently. During his interaction in Zee Chovis Kalak studio Chief Minister in replay to a question regarding proposed All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS) in Gujarat said that a team had recently visited Rajkot and it will take decision regarding where to set up AIIMS in Gujarat – whether in Vadodara or in Rajkot. The Chief Minister in reply to related question said AIIMS must not come to Rajkot just because the Chief Minister is elected from Rajkot. Chief Minister has no role to play in this matter. It is the Central government that would take decision on where to set up AIIMS in Gujarat. And the decision will be taken on merit. Zee 24 Kalak news channel is headed by Deepak Rajani who was earlier heading ETV Gujarati and before that VTV Gujarati. Rajani is from Rajkot and was known as editor of evening daily Aajkal. His father too was journalist who passed away recently. Chief Minister had visited Rajani’s place to condole him. Due to top pay scale at Zee, many incumbent Gujarati news channels lost their some staff to Zee. Some of the news channels already in Gujarati domain include Tv9 Gujarati, ABP News, Etv Gujarati, Sandesh News, Gujarat TV, Nirman TV, GSTV, Mantavya News and more.

DeshGujarat