Jaipur: With new Congress chief
Mallikarjun Kharge taking over the presidency of the Congress, all CWC members, general secretaries and office bearers tendered their resignations to the new party president to reconstitute the party organisation.
In the Rajasthan contest, all eyes will be on who will be the new general secretary of the state where the Congress is the ruling party.
Gehlot supporters had openly accused Ajay Maken, the current general secretary in-charge, of bias towards Sachin Pilot during the aborted CLP meeting held on September 25. The CLP was convened to pass a one-line resolution authorizing the Congress chief to find a successor to chief minister Ashok Gehlot as he was a frontrunner for the Congress president post.
Maken had accused the Congress MLAs who boycotted the CLP and held a parallel meeting at parliamentary affairs minister Shanti Dhariwal's house comes under ‘grave indiscipline’.
Incidentally, Maken and current party president Kharge were the party observers for the CLP meeting.
It is all likely that Maken will be replaced with another general secretary. If that happens, this would be the second time general secretaries are being replaced following allegations of bias in the fractured state Congress.
Maken’s predecessor Avinash Pandey was replaced following allegations by the Pilot faction towards Gehlot.
Pandey was replaced by Maken following the rebellion by Pilot and 18 other MLAs in August 2020 seeking a leadership change in the state. The party leadership agreed to replace Pandey to mollify Pilot as part of a compromise formula.
It will be a tightrope walk for Kharge as the state is going to the polls in December next year and he had to find a general secretary agreeable to both the factions to get ready the Congress state unit battle-ready and factions in control.