Gujarat Assembly Elections 2012: Congress accuses Narendra Modi of 'polarising' voters

NEW DELHI: Congress has accused Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of trying to polarise voters in the state by dragging in the name of party president Sonia Gandhi's political secretary, Ahmed Patel, in his election campaign.

During his campaign, the Gujarat chief minister had said Congress wanted to declare Patel as its chief ministerial candidate but had no courage to declare his name.


Full Coverage of Assembly Elections 2012



"They (BJP leaders) never had the issue of development in 2002 and 2007 (elections). Everyone knows what issues they fought on... In 2012 they do not have any issue which can divide the society, or stoke passions. So now the history repeats in 2012 - they are trying to rake up...Ahmed 'Mia' Patel," Congress poll committee chairman Shankersingh Vaghela told reporters in Ahmedabad. As Patel is a Muslim from Gujarat, Modi was trying to polarise voters using his name, Vaghela said. "This is disgraceful, and does not behove Modi," he said.

Modi had been raising Patel's name in the last three days. Modi had said: "Why are they not declaring that they have decided to make Ahmed Patel the chief minister? Why all these games behind the scenes? They should declare all these things." According to agency reports, this had led to Patel issuing a statement saying he had no such ambition. He had also dubbed Modi's statement as one made by a "dejected and frustrated" person. This did not stop Modi from trying to aggravate the in-fighting in Congress over ticket allocation.