Exactly one month after being appointed the state party chief of Madhya Pradesh, veteran Congress leader Kamal Nath faces a tough task of keeping the party state unit intact as dissatisfaction grows among its leaders and workers ahead president Rahul Gandhi’s visit early next month.
Rahul Gandhi is likely to visit Mandsaur on June 6 on the anniversary of the killing of six farmers in police firing during an agitation. Meenakshi Natrajan, former member of parliament from Mandsaur and chairperson of Rajiv Gandhi Panchayati Raj Organisation, a wing of AICC, has reportedly threatened to pull out of the manifesto committee formed by Kamal Nath in protest against giving entry to a rebel Congress leader who had fought polls as an independent candidate against her.
Several Congress office bearers of Mandsaur, including MLA Hardeep Singh Dang, too, have reportedly threatened to resign from their AICC membership in protest against the inclusion of Rajendra Singh Gautam into the coordination committee headed by former chief Minister Digvijay Singh. Gautam had fought Lok Sabha polls against Natrajan in 2009 as a rebel candidate.
Over 1200 supporters of former PCC chief Arun Yadav have threatened to resign after Maheswar block president and other office bearers were expelled by the new PCC chief. The Congress leaders of Maheswar were protesting against inclusion of some rebel leaders who had fought polls against the Congress nominees.
The disgruntled Congress leaders of Khargone declared that they would go to Delhi and meet Rahul Gandhi against the “high handedness” of Deepak Bawaria, AICC general secretary in charge, and the new PCC chief. Thousands of Congress workers and leaders like Natrajan have come out in support of Arun Yadav.
Meanwhile, the party has formed six committees headed by senior leaders in view of coming assembly polls. Interestingly, most of the committees are headed by veteran leaders except for the Election Campaign Committee headed by Jyotiraditya Scindia, 46.
The topmost committee, called coordination committee, is headed by Digvijaya Singh, 71, with the task of sorting out the issues of factionalism among leaders. Digvijay Singh, who chaired the first meeting of his committee on Thursday, declared that he would go on a state-wide tour to meet all the unhappy leaders and make them work for Congress party.
The third important committee, the Election Planning and Strategy Committee, will be headed by former Union minister Suresh Pachouri while the fourth, the Manifesto Committee, is headed by Rajendra Singh Gautam under whom Natrajan has been made vice-chairperson. Natrajan is reportedly unhappy about the same committee and has refused to work under Gautam.
The fifth panel, the Disciplinary Action Committee, is headed by octogenarian Hajarilal Raguvanshi, 86, while the Media and Communication Committee is headed by veteran Manak Agarwal, 71.
Kamal Nath also faces the dissatisfaction of workers due to giving prominent organisational position to old leaders ignoring the younger ones. Though four acting presidents were appointed by Rahul Gandhi along with Kamal Nath to balance the young and old leaders, those four leaders are yet to make their presence felt. They are over-shadowed by the presence of Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath.
Speaking at a press conference, Digvijay Singh said he would take out the ‘Ekta Yatra’ from May 31 to address dispute and differences within the state Congress. The first phase of the Yatra will end on June 2 and finally it would conclude on August 31. He also denied any dissatisfaction among the supporters of Arun Yadav and Natrajan.