NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, DEC 12
Peeved after the Congress ditched it and joined hands with the BJP in a district panchayat election in Rajasthan, the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) on Saturday ended its alliance with the Congress in two district panchayats in Gujarat.
The district panchayats of Narmada and Bharuch – two tribal-dominated districts in Gujarat – are ruled by a coalition of the Congress and BTP.
“We have decided to end our alliance with the Congress in Narmada and Bharuch,” said BTP president Chhotubhai Vasava.
The Gujarat unit of the BTP said on Twitter that it was the fall-out of developments in the neighbouring state.
“Both the BJP and Congress are the same,” Vasava tweeted.
The two BTP MLAs in Gujarat had abstained from voting in the Rajya Sabha elections held in June.
The party had contested the 2017 Assembly elections in the state in alliance with the Congress.
In Rajasthan’s Dungarpur zila parishad, newly-elected Congress members on Thursday voted for the BJP nominee for the pramukh’s post in the district board.
The BTP had stood by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot during a revolt in the state Congress earlier this year.
Thirteen of the 27 seats in Dungarpur zila parishad were won by BTP-supported independent candidates. The BJP got six seats and the Congress eight.
The BTP needed just one Congress member’s vote for winning the district board head’s post. But the Congress backed the BJP member Surya Ahari, who had filed nomination as an independent, thus thwarting the BTP candidate’s bid.
