Gujarat govt wants districts to explain BJP losses in local body elections

A letter to district administration officers written by the District Election Officer and Collector's office of Junagadh in January seeking specific information on the reasons for the BJP's losses in Gujarat's local body elections in January, has just surfaced, reports The Economic Times. The letter cites a query on the subject by the Chief Minister's Office and asks for an immediate response.

"Urgent details have been sought by the Chief Minister's Office in connection with the results declared for the general election of last district and taluka panchayat 2015. Kindly send in the detailed information of your work area as per the questionnaire by fax within 1500 hours today without fail," says the letter.

Details asked for include the number of BJP candidates defeated in the area, the number of constituencies where they were defeated and reasons for their loss.

The letter is bound to fire up the Congress party in the state, which is already planning to corner the ruling BJP on the issue of the alleged land deals of the business partner of chief minister Anandiben Patel's daughter.

Dr Manish Doshi, Gujarat Congress spokesperson, said: "While this is just one case where you have documented evidence on how the state government is abusing the bureaucracy for its political end, we are still trying to find out if similar letters were written in other districts as well."

He added: "We kept on saying that the state bureaucracy was behaving like the BJP party workers during the last local body election and this letter only vindicates our accusations."