In a letter sent to the Gujarat Congress president Siddharth Patel, the leaders said they were greatly anguished over the inclusion of a person as party office-bearer who had in the past contested district panchayat elections against the official party candidate. She had also worked against senior party leader Arjun Modhwadia during the December 2007 Assembly elections, they said.

Irfan Peerzada, president of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) at Wankaner, told Newsline that all the 12 elected members of the APMC, including himself, have sent their resignations to the state party chief, expressing their resentment against the decision to appoint Mumtaz.

“The party should have considered a loyal party worker to represent Wankaner in the state unit of the party,” Peerzada said.

Wankaner Taluka Panchayat member Devsinh Makwana, who has also resigned, said the move to appoint Mumtaz is a “conspiracy against the sitting Congress MLA Javed Peerzada”. He said it would be in the interest of the party if it reconsidered its decision and replaced Mumtaz with somebody else.

Wankaner City Congress president Ranjit Jhala and Wankaner Taluka Congress president Sajibhai Muhammed Kadival said they had also submitted their resignations from the party because “it is intolerable to have someone as office-bearer who had worked against party interest”.

Meanwhile, Javed Peerzada said the entire Wankaner Taluka Sahkari Sangh and Wankaner Cotton Processing Sahkari Mandali, besides nine Congress representatives in Wankaner municipal committee, have resigned from the party. “It is a conspiracy to harm my political career,” he said.

Peerzada said he has forwarded the resignations to Siddharth Patel. “We are, however, not joining any other party,” the MLA said.

He said he has talked to Siddharth Patel and All India Congress Committee general secretary and Gujarat in-charge B K Hariprasad in this matter.

“They assured me that they would take up the matter with the party high command and come out with a solution acceptable to both the parties,” said Peerzada. Earlier, his father Dr A K Peerzada, two elder brothers Manzoor Peerzada and Khurshid Peerzada, had represented the constituency in the state assembly.

Mumtaz, when contacted, denied the charges levelled against her. She, however, candidly admitted of having contested against the party’s official nominee in the Rajkot Zilla Panchayat elections two years ago.

“I did so because the party nominee, who was also a woman, was active in the BJP and had joined the party only on the eve of Zilla Panchayat polls,” she said, adding that it was injustice to give preference to a newcomer in the party over her when she was working for the Congress for 15 years.