Mallikarjun Kharge, Ajay Maken to meet Sonia Gandhi today over Rajasthan crisis

Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken, two Congress observers who were in Rajasthan on Sunday to attend the legislature party meeting at the home of the chief minister Ashok Gehlot, are anticipated to meet Sonia Gandhi on Monday afternoon.

With Gehlot expected to run for presidential polls next month, the state is currently dealing with a new crisis. Numerous Gehlot’s supporters resigned on Sunday and handed them to Assembly Speaker CP Joshi as a result of Sachin Pilot’s name being mentioned. The resignation is reportedly from more than 80 MLAs.

The MLAs made clear to the observers their demands, emphasising that the next chief minister should be chosen after October 19, once the party’s presidential elections are over, that the Gehlot successor should be chosen from among the roughly 102 MLAs who supported the party during the 2020 crisis, and that Ashok Gehlot should be kept informed throughout the decision-making process. They were reminding the party of Sachin Pilot’s uprising against Gehlot when he visited to Haryana by bringing up the 2020 dilemma. Later, after guarantees from the senior management, he returned.

Ajay Maken said: “We came for the CLP meeting fixed by the CM at a time and date of his choice. Very strange that MLAs didn’t come for that. We also wanted to follow the procedure of speaking to individual MLAs about what they want so that they can speak freely.”

The condition that no announcement – on the chief minister – should be made before October 19 seems to be conflict of interest as resolution authorises the Congress president to take the decision, and by October 19, Ashok Gehlot would have been the Congress president,” he further said.