Congress, NCP forge pre-poll alliance in Gujarat

After Gandhinagar: After declaring its second list of 46 candidates late on Thursday night, Gujarat Congress on Friday announced a pre-poll tie-up with Nationalist Congress Party.

Congress will share three seats of Umreth in Anand District, Devgarh Baria in Dahod district and Naroda in Ahmedabad with NCP. Interestingly, Congress had sent out a tough signal to NCP by fielding its own candidate in Kutiyana in Saurashtra where NCP candidate Kandhal Jadeja is a sitting MLA. Kandhal's siding with BJP during 2017 Rajya Sabha polls had riled Congress. This time Congress went ahead to field its own candidate even before finalising the seat-sharing. Speaking to ET, a senior Congress member had earlier said while NCP and Congress are natural allies, Kandhal's transgression could not be tolerated.

Meanwhile, the party also announced its third list of six candidates taking the total list of candidates announced to 95. The party also changed its Gandevi candidate Shankar Patel and replaced him with Ashok Patel. The party has repeated 21 sitting MLAs so far. Notably, the party fielded Indranil Rajyaguru from Rajkot East seat. Rajyaguru had returned to Congress recently after AAP announced Sudan Gadhvi as its Chief Ministerial candidate. Senior leaders such as Paresh Dhanani, Punjab Vansh, Lalit Kagathara, Lalit Vasoya, Pratap Dudhat, Amrish Der have been renominated from their respective seats.