Congress should shut shop in Gujarat: State BJP chief

Gandhinagar, June 27 Welcoming the five new members from the Congress, who had resigned prior to the Rajya Sabha elections and donned the saffron colour on Saturday, Gujarat BJP Chief Jitu Vaghani said if the Congress resorts only to blaming the BJP for its failure then it should shut shop in the state.

Vaghani formally welcomed the five former Congress MLAs JV Kakadiya (Dhari), Pradyumansinh Jadeja (Abdasa), Brijesh Merja (Morbi), Jeetu Chaudhari (Kaprada) and Akshay Patel (Karjan) into the BJP fold on Saturday at the party headquarters at Kamalam, Gandhinagar.

These five were out of the eight Congress legislators who had resigned from their constituencies prior to the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat for four seats.

The state BJP president said: "Congress party is falling into pieces. Apart from that there is intense infighting within the party, which is now surfacing. Because of these reasons, members are quitting the Congress. The party who cannot keep its flock together is time and again blaming the BJP for their members quitting and allege horse trading, which I am outrightly rubbishing. If the leaderless Congress party in Gujarat has only one thing to resort to, that is to blame the BJP, then they should close their shop in Gujarat."

"The public of Gujarat has been putting their trust in the BJP since 1995 and have allowed us to serve them. After getting inspired by the BJP's nationalist, public oriented and developmental policies these five MLAs joined the party. The addition of these new members will only strengthen the party structure," added Vaghani.

( With inputs from IANS )