BJP drops Morbi's sitting MLA, picks veteran leader

Morbi (Gujarat), Nov 10 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party has dropped sitting MLA and minister Brajesh Merja and nominated 5- term MLA Kantilal Amrutiya for the Morbi seat. Local residents are connecting it with the recent bridge collapse tragedy, in which 141 persons including 51 children lost their lives.

However, party sources deny any such connection with the decision to drop Brajesh Merja. He is a turncoat. He got elected to the state assembly in 2017 on the Congress symbol, in 2020 he quit the Congress and joined the BJP, and in the 2021 by-election he got elected to the assembly on the BJP symbol, they say.

Kantilal Amrutiya is a veteran BJP leader and got elected to the assembly from 1995 to 2017. He was in the news during the recent bridge collapse, when he jumped into the river and saved a few lives and helped others to save more people.

After getting selected as the party candidate from the Morbi seat, Kantilal said, "I have served the society throughout my life, even when I am not elected to the assembly, my service to the society continues, because of which the people of Morbi love me. If the central government is sending one rupee from Delhi for the people of Morbi, I will ensure that the one rupee reaches the people."

He is confident of winning, but Brajesh Merja and his supporters will work against the party line, fear a section of party leaders.

The Congress is going to exploit the differences between the two leaders and will try to benefit from it, said Jayantbhai Patel, president of the Congress District Committee. The people of Morbi are angry with the BJP and its leadership, and just changing the face is not going to save the party from disaster, he added.