On the eve of the Haryana assembly poll results, the issue of chief minister-ship has taken centre stage in the Congress with all eyes on its high command's next move as the party expects to regain power after 10 years in the state.
Rahul Gandhi will lead Congress from the front in the Lok Sabha as well as the assembly polls this year, Union Minister Sachin Pilot said, skirting the question whether he would be projected as Prime Ministerial candidate to take on Narendra Modi.
Sachin Pilot, Parliamentarian from Dausa, Rajasthan and a prominent member of the Congress' young brigade, draws inspiration from his father, late Rajesh Pilot, as well as party chief Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul."Of course, the star campaigners in the coming Lok Sabha elections would be Sonia Gandhi, Rahulji and our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who has been making rapid progress after his heart surgery. Rahulji is one of the most acceptable politicians around,"he said
The 19 MLAs were sent notices Tuesday by the Speaker after the Congress complained that they had defied a party whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings.
Sources said the leadership of the government going forward, if Gehlot is elected as party chief, is likely to be on the meeting agenda.
The division bench completed the hearing of arguments and said it will pronounce its order on Friday, requesting the Speaker too to extend his deadline for accepting the MLAs replies to the notices. The notices had followed a Congress complaint that the 19 MLAs should be disqualified from the assembly for defying a party whip.
Union Minister of State for Communications and Technology Sachin Pilot on Friday charged the National Democratic Alliance government in Bihar with misuse of central funds worth over Rs 11 crore under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and other flagship programmes for the poor.
'I don't want to give any headline to the media as at present my focus is on the Bharat Jodo Yatra'
Gehlot, whose government had faced a rebellion led by his former deputy Sachin Pilot in 2020, said he has adopted the policy of "forgive and forget" and has moved on. He asserted that he has not opposed grant of any party tickets to Pilot's supporters.
As results were declared for assembly elections in four states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana -- here are how some of the prominent candidates fared.
Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Telecommunications and Information Technology, has predicted that, thanks to the mobile technology boom, telephone calls and related charges in India would soon be free. Pilot said that in such a scenario, telecom companies would have to think of novel ways to make money, with services such as data transfer to survive and stay competitive.
Pilot noted that 'the kind of damage that entities and groups and people can cause through the Internet and through the cyber-world is somehow disproportionate to their conventional capacities'.
Several top Congress leaders including party general secretary organisation K C Venugopal, Sachin Pilot, Randeep Surjewala and Shashi Tharoor, wished the former party chief on her birthday.
Gehlot said he has the proof that horse trading was being committed to topple his government.
Giriraj Singh Malinga said he had alerted Gehlot ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls that a conspiracy was going on to topple his government.
The political drama in Rajasthan over leadership change continued on Monday with MLAs loyal to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot remaining non-committal on holding a meeting with Congress observers, who are likely to return to Delhi to apprise the high command about the developments.
Pilot had claimed that the Ashok Gehlot government was in minority and more than 30 Congress and some independent legislators have pledged support to him.
Pilot said he has worked hard for bringing the Congress to power in Rajasthan and hoped the party would fulfil its promises made to the people.
After Congress' observer to the state K C Venugopal made the announcement at a media briefing in New Delhi.
The government is committed to connecting every single panchayat in the country with high-speed Internet in two years, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said.
The MLAs supporting Pilot cannot stand the repeated undermining of Pilot, also the state PCC chief, by the Gehlot camp and the letter by the police's special operations group sent to the deputy chief minister was to "humiliate him", sources said.
The man who could well have been a high-level corporate may have to content himself being deputy chief minister. But other challenges await.
Pilot said he will be taking 'appropriate and strictest possible legal action' against the MLA who 'was made to' level these accusations. Congress MLA Giriraj Singh Malinga alleged that Pilot had offered him money to join the BJP.
The government on Thursday said it will set up a committee to look into the allegations that US retail giant Walmart indulged in lobbying activities in India to gain entry in the country's market.
Two other Rajasthan ministers Vishvendra Singh and Ramesh Meena were also sacked from the state cabinet after a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party, its second in the last two days. The meeting was billed as a 'second chance' for Pilot, who had turned down appeals from the party's top leadership -- including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi -- to return to the fold.
Bidhuri's responsibility will be akin to the party's poll in-charge of the district, sources said.
'The nation cannot afford a government indifferent to its plight/'
Last week, the 34-year old Deora, a two-time Congress MP from South Mumbai, had taken charge as Minister of State for IT and Communications.
The Shiv Sena accused Jyotiraditya Scindia of working hard to see that Pilot quits the Congress.
The visit comes amid the campaign for the November 25 assembly polls in Rajasthan, where the Congress hopes to return to power.
Ramesh Meena, who was among those BSP legislators who made the switch to Congress, said: "The chief minister should honestly tell how much money was paid to us when we joined Congress and left the the BSP in the last Congress government."
Government says that it is trying to improve business environment and any delay in this regard is mostly due to state-level approvals.
'No indiscipline will be tolerated but I am hopeful that Pilot will turn up for the meeting
Ending days of suspense, the Congress on Friday announced that Rahul Gandhi will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli, the constituency held by his mother Sonia Gandhi for the last two decades, and Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, will fight from Amethi.
These are the 15 seats to watch out for in Rajasthan where assembly elections will be held on November 23. The state has 200 constituencies.
Congress and independent MLAs, who had expectations from the cabinet expansion but were not accommodated in the reshuffle, would be adjusted in political appointments.
Ashok Gehlot, widely seen as the Congress's ruling family's nominee for the Congress president's post, bunged a spanner in the works when his MLA supporters submitted their resignations on Sunday night to assembly Speaker C P Joshi.
The coming weeks will be a tightrope walk for Gehlot who has 100 loyalists MLAs waiting to be rewarded on one side and the dissidents who wanted to be rehabilitated on the other, observes Prakash Bhandari.
"Rajasthan is the only state where no demand was raised to change the PCC president in seven years. We knew that nothing is happening here. We knew he is 'nikamma' (worthless) and 'nakara' (idle), still we did not question this in the interest of the party," Gehlot told reporters.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday, December 6, 2022.
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