The All India Congress Committee (AICC) is likely to hold an ‘election strategy’ meeting with the senior leaders of the four states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, by the weekend.
Senior leaders in the Rajasthan PCC are tightlipped on whether the ongoing tussle between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy, Sachin Pilot, would crop up during the meeting at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi. However, PCC President Govind Singh Dotasara has sent his report on Pilot’s Jan Sangharsh Pad Yatra (held on May 11-15) to party in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa as was sought by him.
“The the exact date of the meeting with Rajasthan Congress leaders will be finalised by tomorrow at a meeting to be held by by AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge,” Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, told The Statesman when contacted.
“The party will also hold separate meetings with the leaders of the three other states, namely MP, Telangana, and Chattisgarh, as the assembly elections are due in these states later this year. Please wait for the meeting date,” he added.
During an interaction with the media in Delhi earlier the day, on being asked whether the tussle between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot will be take up during the meeting, he said, “Ye purana ho gaya hai, nayi baat karo. (This is an old issue, talk of something new).”
Video of the media interaction with Randhawa has gone viral on social media in Rajasthan.
On the question whether Pilot will be called for the meeting, Randhawa said, “Party leaders have been invited. Leaders shall come to attend it.”
Meanwhile, Rajasthan PCC President Govind Singh Dotasara told SNS that he and the chief minister would be going to Delhi on the stipulated date. Dotasara declined to raise the issue of Pilot who has given an ultimatum to the Gehlot Government to accept his three main demands by May 30, otherwise his faction would go on an indefinite ‘statewide andolan’ (agitation).
On May 11, the former deputy of the state had sounded a warning on his own government demanding that students who suffered competitive examination paper leak should be given economic compensation, dissolve the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) and reorient it to save the youths future as its government nominee was arrested, and set up a high level probe on the graft cases of former CM Vasundhara Raje’s tenure.
Recently, at the Jaipur Airport, on his way to attend the death anniversary of former PM Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, Randhawa termed Pilot’s Jan Sangharsh Yatra call before the Karnataka polling ‘inappropriate’. In politics there is no permanent friend or foe, he said, adding if Pilot had given an ultimatum, CM Gehlot shall answer to it.
“If he (Pilot) provides any proof of corruption and brings it to the public, I will be first to ask the state government to investigate. Congress does not show any exit gate to anyone but it is up to the concerned leader to decide it,” he said while replying to a bunch of questions related to Pilot.
Meanwhile, a PCC source said the meeting would also finalise the extension of Pradesh Congress Committee’s office bearers and functionaries in most of the districts in the state as the district president posts are lying vacant for the last four years.