Primaries system: Four Cong contenders for Vadodara LS seat

Four Congress contenders including a woman are in the fray for the 'primaries' of Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency, a system introduced by party Vice President Rahul Gandhi to select candidates for 2014 polls.

The contenders for the seat are Sureshbhai Patel, Narendra Rawat, Rajeshriben Desai and Vinubhai Jivabhai Patel.

Suresh Patel is the former president of the city unit of Vadodara Congress and a builder by profession. Vinubhai Patel is the president of Vadodara district Congress and former chairman of the executive committee of the Vadodara district panchayat.

Party sources claimed that Suresh Patel is having a strong support of builders' lobby. Rawat, an engineer by profession, is the president of the Vadodara city Congress while Desai is an active party worker. Today is the last day for Congress workers to register as a voter for the primary voting process.

The voting will take place on March 13. Selected candidates will contest on Congress ticket from Vadodara constituency in Lok Sabha elections, after party gives its final approval.

"Our primary candidate for the Lok Sabha seat will be selected by 664 Congress workers and leaders of Vadodara city and district, who have already registered with us as voters," said Rawat.

Except Vinubhai Patel, none of the three contenders have contested any election either at local, state or national level.

In Gujarat, Vadodara and Bhavnagar are two of the 15 seats shortlisted by Congress where system of selecting probable candidates for upcoming Lok Sabha election through internal voting, called as primaries, has been introduced by the party.

The Vadodara Lok Sabha seat has been held by BJP's Balkrishna Shukla since 2009. Prior to him, the seat was held by Jayaben Thakkar of BJP for three consecutive terms.