Congress crackdown begins from Rajasthan

The Congress high command has started toughening its stand over the leaders of the party who are “conspiring” to weaken the organisation from within. As part of this exercise, the Congress leadership on Sunday appointed Ajay Maken as general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan in place of Avinash Pandey.

The Congress high command has also constituted a three-member committee with senior party leader Ahmed Patel, AICC general secretary in-charge, Organisation K.C. Venugopal and AICC general secretary incharge Rajasthan Ajay Maken as its members to “oversee and follow up the smooth resolution of recent issues in Rajasthan”.

Source said that the threemember high-level committee has been given the mandate to find out those who tried to destabilise the government in the state.

 Therefore, the high command has hinted at more fireworks in store. Heads will roll in other states also and the exercise has begun with Rajasthan. Even in Rajasthan more organisational reshuffle will be seen in future. The report of the threemember panel will also be taken into consideration for axing some leaders.

According to sources, the committee members will hold interaction with 125 legislators to ascertain who were colluding with those seeking to toppled the Ashok Gehlot government. CM Gehlot has already alleged that the BJP wanted to dislodge him. What he meant to say was that some Congress rebels were colluding with the saffron party leaders who were allegedly operating from backstage.

Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi has given clear hint that general secretaries in-charge of other states are also on the chopping block. There should be no repeat of Rajasthan, she is learnt to have told the leaders.

The panel has been formed after the former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident MLAs buried the hatchet with state Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and rejoined the party. Congress former chief Rahul Gandhi has already told Pilot and other leaders that there should be no post-mortems in public.

Meanwhile, newly-appointed general secretary Ajay Maken is considered close to Gehlot. He has been Delhi PCC president and also the Speaker in Delhi Assembly. When Gehlot was in charge of Delhi, Maken had been made minister in the UPA government. Later, Maken had been shifted to media department as its head. It was Maken who was with the MLAs loyal to the Gehlot government when it was passing through crisis. Maken had been sent to the state as observer to help resolve the differences and save the Gehlot government.

When the committee was formed, Maken insisted that all the legislators should be given an audience, not only the disgruntled ones alone. Now, next course of action in Rajasthan, be it about removing someone or about making someone minister, will be based on the report that this committee will submit to the high command.