Amid looming clouds over his candidature for Congress president’s post, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday met party interim chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence.
Gehlot arrived in the national capital on Wednesday night, three days after the political storm in his state on Sunday.
On Thursday afternoon, he arrived at the residence of Sonia Gandhi for the meeting. Soon after Gehlot, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal joined the meeting at 10 Janpath.
High-voltage drama erupted in Rajasthan on Sunday when the MLAs loyal to Gehlot skipped the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting and held a separate parallel meeting at the residence of urban development minister Shanti Dhariwal where they revolted against the possible elevation of Sachin Pilot as Gehlot’s successor in the state. The MLAs also submitted their resignations with the House Speaker CP Joshi.
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Following this, the Central observers — Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken — after returning to Delhi, met Sonia Gandhi. Maken then submitted a nine-page report to Sonia Gandhi giving a clean chit to Gehlot and demanding disciplinary action against three party leaders.
The Congress Disciplinary Committee issued showcase notice to Dhariwal, Mahesh Joshi, and Dharmendra Rathore to reply within 10 days.
Gehlot was said to be the frontrunner for the Congress top post and he was said to be having the backing of the Gandhi family. He had even met Rahul Gandhi last week in Kerala during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
According to party sources, the senior leadership is said to be angry over the developments in Rajasthan. On the other hand, earlier in the day, veteran party leader Digvijaya Singh also collected the nomination forms for the party’s top post, thus making the elections of the party chief more interesting.
Earlier, Shashi Tharoor had collected the forms for the top post and he too will be filing his candidature on September 30, along with Singh.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if Gehlot will still throw his hat into the election ring.
Congress is witnessing an election for the top post after a gap of 21 years. Sonia Gandhi remained at the top post of the party for 18 years from 2000 to 2017. In 2017, Rahul Gandhi became the party chief, which he quit after the 2019 Lok Sabha election drubbing. Sonia Gandhi has been holding the post of interim Congress chief.
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