M A I N   N E W S

Ahmed Patel quits as AICC treasurer
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, July 5 — Factional feud in the Gujarat Congress today led to the resignation of AICC Treasurer, Mr Ahmed Patel, from the post.

Mr Patel, a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat, was reportedly upset over the manner in which the faction led by Mr Bharat Solanki, MLA had at a convention charged that the AICC Treasurer was harming the party in the state.

Mr Solanki, son of former Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr Madhavsinh Solanki had organised a parallel convention in Gandhinagar last month.

The faction was said to be targeting Mr Patel and accusing him of “working to the advantage of the BJP” in the state and terming him and his supporters, including the PCC chief Mr C D Patel as “paper tigers’’.

Mr Ahmed Patel who submitted his resignation to the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, told correspondents that his decision to quit was connected to party affairs in his home state and did not reflect on central affairs.

In his one-and-half page letter to Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Mr Patel said continued jehad by a small group led by the former Union Minister (read Mr Madhavsinh Solanki) in the Gujarat Congress.

He said it appeared that the small group was “hell-bent upon damaging the party because it is averse to my present position in the AICC”.

Mr Patel charged that the group had achieved nothing for the party and did not enjoy the support and claimed that several leaders from the state had told him in Delhi of the adverse public reaction to the continued ‘jehad’ against him through media.

Only yesterday, the Congress President had urged the two factions, one led by Mr Solanki and another by the PCC chief Mr C D Patel to restrain and desist from doing anything that would precipitate matters further.

The feud came to the fore when the state unit suspended Mr Bharat Solanki and three of his colleagues. While Mrs Gandhi asked the Solanki faction to halt attacks against the PCC chief and the AICC Treasurer, she got AICC General Secretary, Mrs Prabha Rau, to state that the party high command did not approve of the suspension.

However, Mr Ahmed Patel is understood to have been peeved that the high command had not taken any action or even reprimanded Mr Solanki and his faction for making such charges against a senior CWC member.

Mr Patel’s resignation is bound to queer the pitch for Mrs Gandhi as the AICC Treasurer is one of the most popular senior leader of the party who won the last CWC elections with the highest number of votes.