Gandhinagar: Congress MLAs – JV Kakadiya, who represents Dhari seat in Amreli district of Saurashtra region and Soma Ganda Patel, who represents Limbdi seat in Surendranagar district of Saurashtra region, Pravin Maru, who represents Gadhada seat of Bhavnagar district of Saurashtra region and Mangal Gavit who represents Dang seat of tribal Dang district in South Gujarat and Pradyumansinh Jadeja who represents Abdasa seat in Kutch district have gone incommunicado and untraced for Congress leadership.

This development has triggered reports that they have tendered their resignations before the Gujarat Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi. Speculations are rife that aker may make announcement on same tomorrow in the assembly.

Congress MLA Lalit Kagthara during his talk with media in the morning confirmed that Soma Patel and Kakadiya had resigned. The move is not surprising, looking at assertive posture of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Names that are also speculated to switch loyalty are MLAs of Nizar, Vyara and Talala.

However Leader of opposition Paresh Dhanani in a tweet claimed that none ‘honest’ MLA of Congress had tendered resignation. Dhanani in a same tweet appealed to stay away from rumour.

""અપ-પ્રચારથી આઘા રેજો""

હાલ કોંગ્રેસના એક પણ
ઈમાનદાર ધારાસભ્યશ્રીએ
રાજીનામું આપ્યું નથી…!

@રાજ્યસભાની રમખાણ.

— Paresh Dhanani (@paresh_dhanani) March 15, 2020

Polling for four seats of Rajya Sabha in Gujarat will take place on March 26. As per the strength of elected MLAs in the assembly, BJP and Congress each can win two seats comfortably. However while Congress has fielded two candidates, Shaktisinh Gohil and Bharatsinh Solanki, the BJP has fielded three candidates, Abhay Bhardwaj, Ramila Bara and Narhari Amin. If BJP wants to make all of its three candidates victorious, it would required support of Bharatiya Tribal Party and Nationalist Congress Party MLAs plus at least three MLAs of Congress.

Congress has moved over a dozen MLAs to Congress-ruled neighboring State Rajasthan last evening. It is learnt that nearly two dozen more MLAs are to be shifted to Jaipur today evening.

One possibility is also that, one of two Congress candidates will withdraw his nomination. The decision on who among two candidates should withdraw nomination will be taken by party leadership. It is more likely that Shaktisinh’s candidature will be intact in such scenario.

DeshGujarat