Mounting Troubles For Congress? Gujarat MLA Quits After Party Gives  Ticket To Ex-BJP Leader Bimal Shah 

After a streak of Congress leaders resigned from Odisha Congress and several others refusing to contest elections, another setback has hit the party in Kheda district of Gujarat.

Congress MLA from the Kapadvanj Assembly seat in Gujarat, Kalu Dabhi has resigned from all party posts and memberships protesting against the party decision to field former BJP leader Bimal Shah as its Lok Sabha candidate on Wednesday evening (3 March 2019). He is now likely to file his nomination as an independent candidate Thursday (4 March 2019), reports The Indian Express.

In a letter addressed to Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Amit Chavda, Dabhi said, “The party’s decision to field Bimal Shah as the candidate from Kheda Lok Sabha constituency has deeply hurt me. I am resigning from all party posts.”

Dabhi had won the Kheda seat defeating BJP candidate Kanu Dabhi and Bimal Shah himself, who had contested as an independent candidate backed by Shankarsingh Vaghela.

Meanwhile, Shah, who has been chosen to take on BJPs sitting MP Devusinh Chauhan, had joined the Congress in January 2019 after he quit the BJP again after re-joining the party in 2014. The former transport minister of the state quit the BJP after the party decided to field Kanu Dabhi, who had lost the polls in 2012 to Vaghela.

This situation further deepens the troubles for Congress in the state of Gujarat where its alliance talks with Sharad Pawar's NCP too have fallen flat. NCP now intends to contest without any pre-poll alliance on all 26 seats, and this is net negative for Congress in the state. In this backdrop, resignation of Dabhi comes as a bad news for the party.