On Sunday he unfollowed Rahul, deleted political tweets

A day after he “unfollowed” Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other leaders on Twitter and deleted all political tweets from his timeline, Gujarat’s leader of the opposition Shankersinh Vaghela on Monday clarified that he wasn’t joining the saffron party as rumoured.

On Sunday, Mr. Vaghela skipped the Gujarat Congress IT cell meeting and announced at a function in north Gujarat that he “was unlikely to contest any election now.”

Subsequently, his social media manager unfollowed all leaders from his official twitter handle @Shankersinhbapu and deleted all political tweets.

“I want to ask who is spreading all these rumours and gossips about my joining BJP,” Mr. Vaghela said, while talking to the media in Gandhinagar on Monday.

According to him, his decision to unfollow Mr. Gandhi and other leaders was not personal. He had decided to get off social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook because they were creating misunderstanding.

“I have earlier also made it clear that I am not in the race to be CM candidate of the Congress. However, there were some messages like “Bapu as CM” being circulated on the social media. So now, I have decided to be inactive on the social media for now” said Mr Vaghela as he tried to explain that he was not “sulking” or putting pressure on the Congress high command to make him CM nominee ahead of the assembly polls to be held later this year.

Mr Vaghela also stressed that the Congress party would contest the polls under the leadership of state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki, a former union minister.

It may be noted that the 77 year old Vaghela, who was been Chief Minister and also union cabinet minister, has been pushing the party leadership to announce him as CM nominee despite the high command’s repeated indications that no leader would be declared CM candidate in Gujarat.

Earlier, Vaghela had organised a meeting of party legislators in Gandhinagar in the presence of Gurudas Kamat, the then in charge of Gujarat affairs for the Congress party, at which many legislators had reportedly told Kamat to accept Vaghela as CM candidate.

Subsequently, Kamat was replaced by the high command as general secretary in charge of the party in Gujarat.