PTI

Ahmedabad, Apr 24: Not even ugly communal riots could break the BJP's dominance in Godhra. So the Congress has fielded a former RSS leader to loosen the saffron party's hold on this part of the country.

The Lok Sabha constituency of Godhra, which was the epicentre of the 2002 communal riots, has been renamed Panchmahals post-delimitation.

Union Textile Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela, who headed the BJP government in Gujarat between 1996-97, is the Congress candidate from this constituency after the Kapadwanj seat he represented was erased in the redrawing of the electoral map.

Vaghela is up against BJP's Prabhatsinh Chauhan, who had lost the state assembly elections from Godhra. Prabhatsinh was brought in after the BJP denied a renomination to sitting MP Bhupendrasinh Chauhan.

The Congress candidate, however, appears presumptuous and overconfident, as he says: "People here have forgotten everything (about the riots)... I have full confidence that Congress will win from the seat."

Over 1,000 people were killed in Gujarat in communal riots that broke out after a coach of the Sabarmati Express carrying Hindu activists was torched.

Votes have since split on communal lines. Vaghela, however, said all that people want was to "live in peace."