Rajasthan Crisis: Maken, Kharge Brief Sonia; To Submit Written Report

A day after the high drama in Rajasthan, Rajasthan Congress in-charge Ajay Maken and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge met party interim chief Sonia Gandhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI | Updated: 26 September, 2022 8:00 pm IST
Senior Congressman Ajay Maken after briefing party interim chief Sonia Gandhi about the situation in Rajasthan. (TNI Photo By Sumit Kumar)

A day after the high drama in Rajasthan, Rajasthan Congress in-charge Ajay Maken and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge met party interim chief Sonia Gandhi on Monday.

Sonia Gandhi has asked the leaders, who were also observers at the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting that was scheduled to be held on Sunday, to submit a written report on Rajasthan.

Earlier in the day, Maken and Kharge returned to Delhi after the ‘desert storm’ in Rajasthan. On Sunday, despite the CLP meeting called by the party leadership, a separate parallel meeting of the MLAs loyal to Rajasthan Chief minister Ashok Gehlot called a meeting at the residence of cabinet minister Shanti Dhariwal.

Sensing a revolt, both the leaders returned to Delhi and met Sonia Gandhi at her residence. Party general secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal, who rushed in from Kerala, also joined the meeting that lasted for two hours.

Speaking to the media after the meeting, Maken, a close confidante of the Gandhi family, said, “We apprised the Congress president about the happenings in Rajasthan. She has asked for a written report.”

The former Union Minister said, “We will submit a detailed written report by tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Maken then reiterated what he had said in the morning in Jaipur about the Gehlot camp pushing for a conditional resolution, terming it as a “conflict of interest”.

The former Union Minister also dubbed the act of calling a parallel meeting while a CLP meeting was already planned as “prima facie indiscipline”.

As many as 90 MLAs loyal to Gehlot submitted their resignation to Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi late on Sunday evening. They are opposing the move to make Sachin Pilot the Chief Minister, as he led a revolt in 2020 against his own government.

Meanwhile, veteran Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath was also called to Delhi and assigned the task of seeing to the present political situation in Rajasthan.

Gehlot, who is close to the Gandhi family, was said to be the preferential Congress president candidate, while Sachin Pilot was said to be his successor in the desert state.

However, MLAs of the Gehlot camp revolted against the proposal of Pilot as state Chief Minister for his revolt in 2020 against his own government.

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