Severe infighting over selection of candidates for municipal elections in Gujarat on Monday led to Congress legislator Imran Khedawala resigning from the party citing that he was ignored by the leaders while deciding tickets for the municipal elections in his area Jamalpur and Khadia, a Muslim-dominated Assembly segment in Ahmedabad city.
His resignation, however, has not been accepted and is being seen as a pressure tactic to get his way in the selection.
“I have submitted my resignation because the party leaders did not heed to my repeated pleas of fielding local candidates in my constituency instead of bringing in people from other wards,” he told media persons after submitting his resignation.
Both the BJP and the Congress have been facing dissent over the selections for Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar corporations.
The BJP, which has been ruling all the six urban governance bodies for decades, has dropped more than 50% of sitting councillors to bring in new faces. It introduced stringent norms like those above 60, those who have won three consecutive terms as councillor and relatives of political leaders for not giving tickets.
Elections to the bodies including Ahmedabad are scheduled on February 21 and results will be declared on February 23.
