Jaipur: Rajasthan Congress in-charge at the AICC Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has called a crucial meeting in Delhi on Friday amid a renewed challenge from Sachin Pilot to the party top brass. The meeting called by Randhawa will be attended by Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasara, co-incharges Qazi Muhammad Nizamuddin, Amrita Dhawan and Virendra Rathore, agency quoted sources as saying. The meeting is to be held amid fresh trouble in the Rajasthan Congress in the wake of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s recent statement that his predecessor Vasundhara Raje helped him save his government in 2020.
Dotasra confirmed the meeting and said it will be held to strengthen the Congress in the election year and discuss all the issues related to Rajasthan. The meeting is expected to discuss the challenge thrown by Pilot’s “Jan Sangharsh Yatra”. Pilot launched a 125-km foot march from Ajmer to Jaipur on Thursday to raise the issue of corruption and cases of paper leaks in government recruitment exams.
He said his march is not against anyone but over issues. Pilot also repeated that he had been writing to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for a year and a half for action over corruption, but there has been no action.
The five-day yatra mounts pressure on the party leadership months ahead of the assembly elections.
A month ago, the former deputy chief minister defied a warning from the party to hold a daylong fast targeting Gehlot on ‘inaction’ over alleged corruption when the BJP was previously in power.
Pilot and Gehlot have been engaged in a bitter tussle for power in the state Congress unit and in government.
One of the Pilot camp MLAs, Ved Prakash Solanki, has written to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former president Rahul Gandhi, saying Randhawa has failed to establish coordination in the party’s state unit.
With Rajasthan set to go to polls later this year, the latest flashpoint between Gehlot and Pilot could be a cause for concern for the Congress.
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