Shankersinh Vaghela is always welcome in Congress, says senior leader Arjun Modhwadia

Ahmedabad: Senior Congress leader from Gujarat Arjun Modhwadia on Tuesday said former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela was always welcome to return to the party.

Vaghela and Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia held a joint press conference here to speak about a summons issued to them to appear as witnesses in a corruption case.

Vaghela was with the Congress for two decades before quitting in 2017 after resigning from the post of leader of opposition in Gujarat Assembly.

"The path is paved for Bapu (as Vaghela is called) to join the Congress, and it is for him and the party high command to decide," Modhwadia said, when asked if their sharing the dais indicated that Vaghela could return to the party.

The state Assembly elections in Gujarat are due by the end of the year.

Asked about it, Vaghela responded saying whatever Modhwadia said was right.

The former chief minister had last February said that he had no problem joining the Congress to fight the BJP.

"I am ready to join the Congress without any pre-conditions to fight the BJP. I have no problem joining Congress. I will take an appropriate decision after meeting madam Soniaji and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi," the senior leader had said in February last year.

A former state Congress president and Union minister, Vaghela had decided to break ranks with the party in July 2017 after serving it for around two decades. He was then the Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly.

In 2019, he joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the presence of party chief Sharad Pawar.

Vaghela had started his political career with the BJP. After the BJP came to power in the state in 1995 and chose to make Keshubhai Patel the chief minister instead of him, Vaghela engineered a split in the saffron outfit and became the chief minister in 1996 with outside support of the Congress.

He later joined the Congress and served as the textile minister in the Manmohan Singh government. PTI KA PD ARU ARU