By Nora Rahil Chopra
CONGRESS NARROWS DOWN ON DELHI UNIT PRESIDENT
Congress President Sonia Gandhi is regularly meeting with senior Delhi Congress leaders and workers over the past few weeks in order to fill the president’s post in the Delhi unit of the party, which fell vacant after Sheila Dikshit’s demise. All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of its Delhi unit, PC Chacko, who was present at the meeting, said that Gandhi was also assured by the leaders that her decision would be acceptable to the entire Delhi Congress. According to Congress sources, Subhash Chopra and Jai Parkash Aggarwal are the front-runner for the post of President, Delhi Congress. However, Ajay Maken was not too keen to take on the job because of his health issues. The Assembly elections are crucial for the Congress as it will give an opportunity to the grand old party to bounce back in Delhi.
MAMATA BANERJEE UPS ANTE AGAINST POSSIBLE NATION-WIDE NRC
After the publishing of NRC list, in which all parties are claiming that out of the total 19.07 lakh people being left out of the final NRC in Assam, more than 12 lakhs are Bengali Hindus. It is being alleged that wrongful exclusion may have tainted the NRC updation process in Assam. Now the Supreme Court will decide the matter. But the matter became politically hot in West Bengal after the state BJP leadership declared that if they won in the 2021 assembly election, less than two years from now, they would implement the NRC in West Bengal. Reacting to this statement, Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee has commented that in any case NRC would not be implemented in West Bengal and has also blamed the central government for publishing the NRC in Assam. Banerjee has claimed that legal citizens of Assam have been left out from the NRC list. She also expressed surprise that near about one lakh Gorkha people have been left out from the NRC. Banerjee has appointed senior leader and Urban Development Minister Firad Hakim and deputy leader of Rajya Sabha, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, for organizing protest rallies against the NRC. In order to touch base with the leaders of eastern states on this issue, she has also appointed TMC leader and MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay to make contact with all the parties of various northeastern states as well as national level leaders to bring all of them all on a platform against NRC.
MLAs WANT PILOT TO GIVE FAVOURITE BUREAUCRATS JAIPUR POSTING
In Rajasthan, there are two poles of power — one is the Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the second is Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot. All the officers of the state are in a dilemma about who to seek patronage from for their postings, because the Chief Minister is planning to transfer officers within departments for speeding up the administration as well as to improve the law and order in the state. While most of the senior bureaucrats are close to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, whom they have known from the days of his first term as Rajasthan Chief Minister, the younger generation of bureaucrats are looking towards Sachin Pilot. On Saturday last, on the birthday of Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, thousands of workers, supporters and leaders turned up at the Congress office in Jaipur to wish Pilot on his 42nd birthday. Although Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was on a tour to Jaisalmer, he also wished Pilot through a tweet. Most of the bureaucrats have also visited his residence and wished him and many MLAs were there with a list of officers whom they wanted in their constituency and district. The wish list was especially for Jaipur, where officers to be stationed have been recommended by MLA Mahesh Joshi, the Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariya was, as well as Agriculture Minister Lalchand Kataria. All the MLAs and Ministers, it seems, want their officers should be posted in Jaipur in place of officers already stationed in the state capital. Looks like Pilot has a lot of plates to fill.
SONIA GANDHI WANTS COMPLETE UNITY WITHIN CONGRESS STATE UNITS
After becoming the Interim President of the Congress, Sonia Gandhi is now meeting with the state leaders and workers wherever assembly elections are going to be held soon. In this process, Sonia Gandhi has resolved the party problems of Haryana and will announce the state unit of Delhi Chief within day or two. In the same way, she called important state leaders of Maharashtra and Jharkhand to finalise the leadership issues and alliance partners. In Haryana, Kumari Selja has taken over the charge of the state Congress. Whereas former president Ashok Tanwar and Kiran Chaudhary have remained absent, but Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kumari Selja have assured the gathering they are united to fight against the BJP in Haryana. Selja announced that she would not fight the assembly election. According to Congress sources, Sonia Gandhi has instructed the leadership of states where the elections are near to enter jointly in the electoral field. Due to less time, challenges have increased and they should collectively fight the assembly polls by moving fast without any infighting in the party and they should give good results in their states, Gandhi has said. (IPA)