Rahul Gandhi upset with party in Maharashtra, Congress sends observer

MUMBAI: Amid reports that Rahul Gandhi is unhappy with the party in the state, Congress has decided to depute an observer to take stock of the political situation in Maharashtra.
The decision came on a day state Congress president Nana Patole met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, the first since the fall of the MVA government. Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal were also present.
Patole tweeted that the leadership is unhappy with the shock defeat of Chandrakant Handore in the MLC polls, and action would be initiated against erring leaders and legislators. Handore is a Dalit leader and was the first preference among the two party candidates in the MLC polls.
On Wednesday, former CM Prithviraj Chavan had asked AICC general secretary H K Patil, who is in-charge of Maharashtra, to probe the defeat. As many as seven Congress legislators are suspected to have cross voted.
On the same day, former minister Aseem Khan and Handore called on Rahul Gandhi to brief him. According to reports, Rahul Gandhi expressed his displeasure about the state of affairs in the state.
The AICC has been stunned by the absence of 11 Congress MLAs during the trust vote the BJP-backed Eknath Shinde government faced on Monday. "In view of the whip issued by the party, they were expected to vote against the confidence motion. However, 11 legislators, including former CM Ashok Chavan and former minister Vijay Wadettiwar, failed to reach the council hall for voting. It's a serious matter. Since they were in Mumbai, it was their responsibility to reach the voting centre and vote against the motion," a senior Congress functionary said.
The party high command is also cut up over the renaming of Aurangabad and Osmanabad during MVA's last cabinet meeting. "As per the directives of the AICC, it was expected the Congress cabinet members would abstain when the renaming issue was taken up, but that did not happen,'' said the functionary.
The Patole-Sonia meeting assumed significance as Congress has to chart its future course after the fall of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government. With Uddhav Thackeray's Sena set to become a marginal player following the split in the party, an electoral alliance with NCP, which existed before 2014, may be the preferred route. Crucially, the party is concerned about poaching of its MLAs.