Congress to pick Gujarat CLP leader today, Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit to attend meet

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Congress's Gujarat in-charge and general secretary Mohan Prakash will attend as central observers the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting to be held in the state Assembly Tuesday.

Party sources said all the party legislators have been invited to attend the meeting and that they would be asked to give their views about who should be recommended as the Leader of Opposition.

Being the biggest opposition party, the opposition leader in the Assembly will be from the Congress.

When contacted, Arjun Modhwadia confirmed that the meeting would be held tomorrow, but he refused to speak anything on who could be nominated as the CLP leader.

Sources said that senior party leaders were contemplating to propose the name of former union minister Shankersinh Vaghela as other senior leaders like GPCC president Modhwadia, Shaktisinh Gohil and former state party chief Siddharth Patel lost the polls.

They said said that after eliciting the views of MLAs, the names of the candidates for CLP leader proposed by the legislators would be given to the central observers and they would inform about it to the party high command for taking a final decision. The name of the CLP leaders would be finalised within an hour of the meeting, they added.

While Vaghela could not be contacted despite several efforts, his son and MLA Mahendrasinh Vaghela said his father had not yet decided if he would take the post or not. "Let the party decide and then he will think about it," he said.

Sources said that Vaghela might stake the claim for state party presidentship

in the event of someone else being appointed as CLP leader. Modhwadia had resigned from the post soon after his defeat in the December elections but his resignation is yet to be accepted by the high command.

... contd.

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