A meeting of senior Congress leaders in Jaipur today saw a light hearted exchange between Ashok Gehlot, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Sachin Pilot. The subject — who is in charge.
The meeting of the Congress unit of Rajasthan saw a closed-door interaction between Sachin Pilot — now Punjab in-charge, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who is in charge of Rajasthan, Gehlot, then leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, Tika Ram Jully and PCC chief Govind Singh Dotasara. The meeting has been called in Rajasthan ahead of the panchayat elections to discuss the party’s core strategy and candidate selection. Senior leaders like Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot largely stayed away from the party’s campaign for the urban local body polls, leaving it to the state organisation and local MLAs to handle the campaign and the formation of the boards. But after the visit of party general secretary KC Venugopal, the senior leaders have met to brainstorm ahead of the panchayat elections. There is a fertiliser crisis in Rajasthan and the government is not being able to deliver. The BJP is misusing official machinery to win the polls. We will give tickets to candidates with a clean image and will perform well in Rajasthan,” he added.
In the recently concluded urban local body polls, the Congress performed well with just a 1 per cent difference in vote share, but lost out in terms of organisational strength. The party managed to form boards in only 94 urban local bodies in the state as compared to the BJP’s 197.
After the meeting, Pilot said, “We will go to villages, we will win and improve our performance in the panchayat polls.
