Ahmedabad: Gujarat Congress on Tuesday sacked former secretary Jayesh Shah from the party after he claimed to have written a letter to the high command in Delhi against senior leader Shankarsinh Vaghela, alleging that he has been destroying the party in the state.
"Taking serious note of the development, we have decided to remove him from the primary membership of the party," Gujarat state Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.
Shah claimed to have written a letter to the party high command against Vaghela alleging that the senior leader is working to weaken the party in Gujarat, since he did not try to stop five Congress MLAs from crossing over to the BJP.
Incidentally, Shankarsinh Vaghela himself had crossed over to the Congress from the BJP.
Shah claimed that a total of 28 veteran Congress leaders, such as former MPs and MLAs signed his letter. The Congress took a serious view of factionalism at a time when it is preparing to take on the Narendra Modi-led BJP during the Lok Sabha elections.
However, Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi described Shah`s claim of a letter by 28 Congress leaders to the high command as "mischief".
"There is absolutely no truth in it (writing a letter signed by 28 Congress workers against Vaghela). Vaghela is our senior and respected leader, who is appointed by our president Sonia Gandhi. Thus, party workers are always with him," claimed Doshi, who also admitted that the matter is serious.
"It could be mischief (by Shah). The party leadership has taken serious note about such an act of maligning a senior leader`s image," Doshi said.
Meanwhile, Shah stood firm to his claim of sending an anti-Vaghela letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi a week ago.
He said that his letter`s content was derived from an old letter, sent during the tenure of the late Amarsinh Chaudhari, who used to be the president of the GPCC.
"During 2003, a similar letter was sent to the Congress high command by Chaudhari, who opposed the inclusion of Vaghela in the party. Now, we are facing similar problems, since Vaghela failed to stop MLAs migrating to the BJP.
Thus, many Congress veterans feel that Vaghela is helping BJP and destroying the Congress here," Shah said here today.
Shah also claimed that Chaudhari had sent a similar anti-Vaghela letter during December 2003. "Since the situation is similar, I took some paragraphs from that letter and added a few more paragraphs in it," Shah, who is unwilling to share the letter with reporters, said.
