Gujarat Assembly elections 2012: Team lost, captain Shankersinh Vaghela won

Ahmedabad : Shankersinh Vaghela’s assertion days ago that he was the “captain” of the state Congress may have come true, but the defeat of his prominent colleague in the Gujarat Assembly elections 2012 has left him without a team even though the party improved its tally by two seats.

While Vaghela himself won by a little over 6,500 votes from Kapadvanj, Congress Legislature Party leader Shaktisinh Gohil and state Congress chief Arjun Modhwadia lost.

Modhwadia, as he bowed out of the party’s top job, said he “respected the people’s verdict” and that the party would continue to “perform as a creative and positive opposition”. Gohil also accepted “responsibility for the outcome of the result” and stepped down as Leader of the Opposition.

Siddharth Patel, who was in charge of Congress’s campaign, was also defeated from Dabhoi.

While Gohil was defeated by BJP’s Purshottam Solanki, a former TADA accused who is now alleged to have been involved in a Rs 400-crore fishing scam as the fisheries minister, Modhwadia was trounced by Kharwa community leader Babu Bokhiriya who was a suspect in a Congress worker’s murder.