Congress and AAP sealed the deal on seat-sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Saturday, leaving a few Congress leaders unhappy and dissatisfied with the announcement. Among them, were the children of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel's children who had been eyeing for Gujarat's Bharuch seat, which their father had won back in 1985.
On being asked about the seat-sharing between the two parties and the Bharuch seat going to AAP, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh stated: "The party has to make some tough decisions keeping in mind the bigger picture. Even I was a little disappointed but decisions are made for the party and not a particular person."
The I.N.D.I.A Bloc on Saturday had assigned the Bharuch and Bhavnagar Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat to AAP and retained 24 seats for Congress for the upcoming general elections.
This left Mumtaz and Faisal Patel disheartened as they had been aggressively staking their claims on the Bharuch seat on sentimental grounds after their father passed away and considered the seat as their father's legacy seat.
Following the allocation of the Bharuch seat, Mumtaz wrote on X, " Deeply apologize to Our district cadre for not being able to secure the Bharuch Lok Sabha seat in alliance.I share your disappointment. Together, we will regroup to make INC India stronger. We won’t let Ahmed Patel's 45 years of Legacy go in vain. #bharuchkibeti."
Faisal Patel, Ahmed's son also shared on Saturday that neither he nor his party workers are happy with the decision. He stated: "My party workers and I are not happy and we wanted this decision to not be taken but if the high command wants, we will follow it - both party workers and I. I am going to Congress and I will speak with the high command once again. There is a lot of time to file nominations as well as for elections...Gandhi family is my family too...I am of the firm belief that they will understand the emotions of the Patel family attached to this seat"
AAP fielded a tribal leader from Narmada district's Dediapada, Chaitar Vasava from the Bharuch Lok Sabha seat. Chaitar is a former aide of Mahesh Vasava and began his political career with the Bhartiya Tribal Party formed by Mahesh in 2017. He joined AAP ahead of the 2022 assembly polls after BTP announced its tie-up with AAP. Even though BTP broke ties with the party later, Vasava chose to remain with AAP.