Loyalist Thorat lost political weight in Delhi? Nod to Rajiv Satav’s candidate

Opportunity for Rajesh Rathod of Jalna, Council election will be unopposed?

Mumbai: In Maharashtra, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) after coming to power the ‘Loyalist’ state Congress president Balasaheb Thorat has not been able to do justice to the party in the last six-seven months. Rejecting the names recommended by Thorat, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has nominated Rajesh Rathod, a newcomer from Jalna, for the election to the Elected by MLAs constituency in the Legislative Council.

Rathod’s name was recommended by Rajeev Satav, who was recently elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha. With this decision, Sonia Gandhi has indicated that the party will henceforth give priority to the young leadership. At the same time, Sonia Gandhi has underlined that ineffective loyalists who have no longer have a place in Delhi and that leaders who have repeatedly lost elections they will not be politically rehabilitated through the back door.

The election to be held for 9 vacant seats in the Legislative Council is likely to be held unopposed due to the insistence of the local leadership of the Congress. Sonia Gandhi’s decision today shows the impact of the cordial dialogue between Sonia Gandhi and the current Chief Minister (Uddhav Thackeray) while establishing power. Not only that, but even today, the political significance of Sonia Gandhi underscoring the importance of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar and what Pawar says will happen in Maharashtra.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was insisting that the elections for 9 seats in the Legislative Council should be held unopposed. For this, the strategy was to give 4 candidates to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 2 each to NCP and Shiv Sena and one to Congress. But, the Congress leadership in the state was insisting that the party contest two seats.

Many from within the Congress party had been complaining to Congress president Sonia Gandhi that Balasaheb Thorat was being stretched to his limits after having assumed triple responsibilities of being legislative party leader, revenue minister and state president. Before the assembly elections, changes were made in the leadership of the state from Delhi, which meant that Ashok Chavan was removed and Thorat was made the state president. Thorat was given a team of five leaders called executive presidents. Among the executive chairpersons are Yashomati Thakur, Dr Nitin Raut and Vishwajeet Kadam were also given cabinet berths. After the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA) government was formed in the state, there was talk in the corridors of state party headquarters in Tilak Bhavan that the party had lost its vitality.

Rehabilitation of defeated candidates rejected

Thorat had recommended to the party leadership that the leaders who lost two or three consecutive elections should be given a chance in the council elections. According to reports, Thorat had recommended the names of Mohan Joshi, Kalyan Kale and Muzaffar Hussain. Former chief minister and Gandhi family loyalist Prithviraj Chavan, former state president Ashok Chavan, Dr Nitin Raut, Ahmed Patel and Mukul Wasnik also recommended that the losing candidates be given a chance in the council polls. Party president Sonia Gandhi has rejected all these names and given a chance to a new face.

Satav to be the new state Cong chief?

Party high command in Delhi is of the view that since Thorat has been handling three responsibilities all at once, he cannot do justice to any of those posts. Hence, there is a possibility of a reshuffle at the organizational level in the party in the coming days in the state. At that time, Thorat would be relieved of his responsibilities as state president and the responsibility could be handed over to Rajiv Satav, a young leader, sources in Delhi said. Satav is a loyalist of Rahul Gandhi. While the experience in Madhya Pradesh was fresh where the young leader Jyotiraditya Scindia’s displeasure with senior leader Kamal Nath was ignored by Delhi and hence lost power in the state. Sources claimed that Sonia Gandhi has hinted that Rahul Gandhi’s words would carry weight in the party and that new leadership would be promoted by handing over the leadership of the party in Maharashtra to Satav.

Who is Rajesh Rathod?

Rajesh Rathod is a former Chairman of Jalna Zilla Parishad. His father Dhondiram Rathod was a MLC during the tenure of the late Vilasrao Deshmukh. Rajesh Rathod has good hold in the Banjara community and is considered a loyalist of Rajiv Satav. The Congress had earlier nominated Haribhau Rathore as an MLC, who was a leader of the Banjara community from Vidarbha and had joined the party after defecting from the BJP, as an Lok Sabha MP. However, as he left the Congress and joined the Shiv Sena, and the Banjara community was not represented in the Congress. No candidate from this community was given the party ticket in the 2019 assembly elections. This has been now compensated in the council elections, said Kalyan Dale, state president of the Bara Balutedar Association and a senior Congress office-bearer in Jalna.