Onus on Cong for Oppn unity during Guj Assembly polls: NCP's Praful Patel

The onus of keeping like-minded parties together to fight the BJP in the 2022 Gujarat Assembly polls was on the Congress, which had failed to do so in 2017, senior NCP leader Praful Patel said on Friday.

Patel, who is the party's Gujarat in charge, said people were against the BJP in the last polls but the Congress, despite winning 88 seats, could not dislodge the former as it had failed to take along other opposition parties.

'To avoid repeating this in the 2022 Assembly polls, all like-minded parties must come together (to defeat the BJP). As always, the NCP will cooperate in this endeavor. But more importantly, being the largest opposition party, Congress needs to think over it," Patel, a former Union civil aviation minister, said.

He said the NCP had taken the lead (to form such an alliance) in Maharashtra as it was powerful there, while in Gujarat this onus fell on the Congress as it was the principal opposition party.

The people of Gujarat were suffering from poverty, unemployment, poor law and order under BJP rule, Patel claimed.

The NCP and Congress were in a seat sharing agreement in the 2017 Assembly polls, but the former had also claimed it was not given enough seats to fight.

On the NCP's lone MLA in the state, Kandhal Jadeja, openly defying the party whip and voting for the BJP instead of the Congress in the last Rajya Sabha polls, Patel said it was Jadeja's personal issue and did not reflect his party's stand.