Rajya Sabha polls: ‘Unhappy’ Rajasthan minister Ramesh Meena skips Congress meet for 3rd day in a row

JAIPUR: While the Congress is claiming to have its lawmakers together, the disgruntled lot continues to ring the alarm bells. Minister of food and civil supplies Ramesh Meena didn’t turn up for the third consecutive day at a hotel where his party MLAs are lodged along with central party leaders and observers on Saturday.
Meena’s rift with the senior Congress leaders in the state has reached the party high command in Delhi through an observer.
T S Singh Deo, health minister of Chhattisgarh, who is also party observer for the Rajya Sabha polls in Rajasthan admitted that all is not well in the Congress clan. While talking to the mediapersons, he said, “Meena should have come. If he is not coming, it is obvious that he might be unhappy over something. I have spoken to deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot regarding the absence of Meena.” The observer didn’t stop here. He further told mediapersons that he had sent a report to the party high command. “If somebody is hurt in the family, the heartburn is obvious. I was a candidate for the post of chief minister in Chhattisgarh. However, it didn’t happen, but it doesn’t mean that I have maintained a distance with the family,” said Deo.
Sources said that in the last two days, the Congress has held all party MLAs meet to prepare a strategy for the Rajya Sabha polls scheduled for June 19. The meets were attended by the central party leaders.
“Congress leaders like Randeep Surjewala and Rajya Sabha nominee from the state K C Venugopal contacted the disgruntled leader (Meena) but he didn’t show up,” said a source.
Meanwhile, at the hotel, a workshop was organised for the Congress MLAs to update and to educate them on the six years of BJP rule at the Centre. During the workshop, the MLAs were briefed on central government’s failure on Covid-19, migrants’ issue, the status of the economy in presently, lowest GDP since Independence, the decimation of constitutional bodies, doubling the income of farmers and inflation by the leaders.
Surjewala told that as the country is entering into the seventh year of the Modi rule, the citizens of the country have been pushed to the wall by the in numerous ill-fated decisions taken by them. “They came to the power by making countless promises to the citizens but in reality, they have failed to even run the country normally,” said Surjewala.
The workshop was presided over by chief minister Ashok Gehlot. RS nominee K C Venugopal, Sachin Pilot, party in-charge in Rajasthan Avinash Pandey also attended the workshop.