After a wait of virtually six months, the Congress has announced a 39-member executive for Rajasthan, accommodating loyalists from camps of each chief minister Ashok Gehlot and ex-deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot.
Congress basic secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal announced the list late on Wednesday. The party appointed seven vice presidents, eight basic secretaries and 24 secretaries.
The new executive has attempted to strike a balance amongst loyalists of Gehlot and Pilot as effectively as a senior leader and assembly speaker Dr CP Joshi. Among the new appointees, 18 are viewed as close to Gehlot though 11 are observed as close to Pilot.
The appointments came 175 days immediately after Govind Singh Dotasara was appointed as the state Congress president on July 14, 2020, immediately after Pilot had rebelled against Gehlot’s leadership. The month-lengthy rebellion had virtually brought down the Congress government ahead of the central leadership intervened and brokered a truce.
Pilot who was the state president then was removed from the post and a day later the Congress had dissolved the state executive unit and the party’s district and block committees as effectively as all departments and cells of the state unit.
Dotasara expressed happiness at the appointments and mentioned he hoped the new group would work collectively to strengthen the Congress in the state so that the party would return to energy in the subsequent elections. He also mentioned this is only a tiny initially list and more appointments will be created in the subsequent couple of weeks.
Gehlot and Pilot as well congratulated the new appointees and Gehlot mentioned he hoped that the new appointees would take the party’s programmes, policies, principles to villages.
There had been exhaustive deliberations more than the previous couple of months amongst leaders in Delhi and Rajasthan for the appointment of the state executive. State in-charge Ajay Maken held talks with Gehlot, Pilot, Dotasara and other leaders to attempt and arrive at a consensus.
Maken and Dotasara had stated that the executive would be appointed by the finish of December 2020 but it was delayed additional as deliberations continued with Dotasara creating quite a few trips to Delhi to meet Maken and Venugopal.
The new executive has Govind Ram Meghwal, Harimohan Sharma, Dr Jitendra Singh, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, Naseem Akhtar Insaf, Rajendra Chaudhary and Ramlal Jat as vice presidents. Chaudhary is viewed as a Pilot loyalist.
GR Khatana, Hakim Ali, Prashant Bairwa, Rakesh Pareek, Mangilal Garasiya, Lakhan Meena, Rita Chaudhary and Ved Solanki have been created basic secretaries. Among these, Khatana, Solanki and Parikh are observed as becoming close to Pilot.
The appointments have also attempted to balance caste equations with six Jats, 5 Brahmins, 4 Gurjars and 3 Muslims amongst the new members. Five ladies have identified a location in the 39 appointees.
With the declaration of the state executive, the path to the lengthy-awaited political appointments as well has been cleared. Party insiders say that these persons who have identified a location in the executive will not be viewed as for political appointments and in the anticipated cabinet reshuffle.