Know your candidate: Indranil Rajyaguru, candidate for Rajkot (East) from INC

Rajkot or better known as Rangilu Rajkot is the fourth largest & the fourth most populous city of Gujarat. It includes 8 Vidhan Sabha constituencies i.e. Rajkot east, Rajkot west, Rajkot South, Rajkot rural, Jasdan, Gondal, Jetpur & Dhoraji.

The list of candidates standing for these constituencies have been announced by various parties for upcoming Vidhan sabha elections. Let us get conversant about one of the candidates namely Indranil Rajyaguru. Son of Zilla panchayat President late Sanjaybhai Rajyaguru, Indranil Rajyaguru has always been intent to business, social service & politics.

Putting spotlight on his political history, he has earlier served as Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from 2012, from the constituency of Rajkot east until 2017 assembly elections after which he was succeeded by Arvind Raiyani from BJP.

In this year’s 2022 Gujarat assembly elections, he is going to contest from the same seat i.e. Rajkot- east constituency, once again. Currently, he is a member of Indian National Congress (INC). In April 2022 this year, Rajguru left INC & joined Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) but returned back to INC in November 2022. He has made surprising claims after that about AAP & its chief Arvind Kejriwal. After rejoining congress, he has alleged that huge amount of funds was transferred to Gujarat via a chartered flight booked on government money. Moreover, he claimed that AAP, which showcases itself as honest, has been spending black money for the elections through ‘angadias’. Truthfulness & accuracy of these claims made by him is not certain.

AAP had announced Isudan Gadhvi as its CM candidate for Gujarat on 4^th November. Gadhvi’s name was announced by AAP claiming that he was chosen based on the public poll it conducted in Gujarat. When asked if he left the party since he was not made not made the chief ministerial candidate by AAP, former MLA Rajyaguru responded that he was in talks with congress to rejoin it much before announcement of AAP’s CM candidate. “I have been associated with the Congress ever since my father became a party member. My family was not supportive of me leaving the Congress. I had joined the AAP because I felt the BJP was bad for the country and it was necessary to defeat it in Gujarat. However, looking at the functioning of AAP, I saw it was trying to fool the people the way BJP was doing. This never used to happen in the Congress.” Said Rajguru.

Coming back to pavilion, Indranil Rajyaguru is once again a part of congresscontesting from Rajkot-east constituency for this year’s Vidhan Sabha elections. On this constituency, he will be contesting against BJP’s Uday kumar Kangad & AAP’s Rahul Bhuva. It is to be seen after election results whether his decision to jump back to congress proved to be beneficial or not.

–An article by Om Vishariya