Shweta Bhatt started campaigning on Sunday. “I request Keshubhai Patel to withdraw his candidate from the election. I appeal to all opposition parties for support and help,” she said at a press conference.
BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said at an election rally in Godhra that the Congress had made Shweta Bhatt a scapegoat by fielding her against Modi. She dismissed that as Naidu’s view, but refused to react to Congress leader Narhari Amin's statement to the media that her nomination had disappointed him.
Her husband Sanjiv had been with her when she filed her nomination papers, apparently a violation of police service rules. “He accompanied me as a husband and not as an IPS officer,” she said. “It doesn’t amount to a violation of any laws.”