Wings clipped, Digvijaya wants to relinquish duties
NEW DELHI: Even as the organisational changes in the Congress are happening in bits and pieces, some senior functionaries have requested the party leadership to relieve them of all responsibilities.
The latest to join the list is outspoken party general secretary Digvijaya Singh who is set to embark on a six-month “spiritual, personal and apolitical” Narmada yatra in September.
Singh, who looks after party affairs in Andhra Pradesh, will undertake the 3300-km yatra, known as Narmada Parikrama (circumambulation), covering parts of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Once an influential leader in the Congress, Singh, 70, has already been cut to size and divested of the charge of three states of Goa, Karnataka and Telangana. He had come under fire for his “mishandling” of the postpoll developments in Goa, where the Congress failed to form the government despite emerging as the single largest party. The BJP succeeded in cobbling together a coalition.
Even in Karnataka and Telangana, a rebellion had been brewing in the Congress. Many leaders and legislators from both the states had complained to the Congress high command about Singh’s style of functioning and demanded his removal.
Similarly, another general secretary Ambika Soni had repeatedly requested the party leadership to reduce her workload in view of her ill-health. She was handling the hill states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himchal Pradesh.
During the Uttarakhand assembly elections in February-March this year, Soni, 74, had taken the help of senior colleague Kumari Selja in running the party affairs.
She had later told the party leadership that ill-health will prevent her from travelling in Himachal Pradesh, which goes to polls later this year. The Congress high command accepted her request relieved her of the charge of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
While she continues to look after the party affairs in J&K, former union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, 75, was appointed as general secretary and given the charge of Himachal Pradesh.
The third general secretary to having sought a replacement is BK Hariprasad who had submitted his resignation after the party’s debacle in this year’s panchayat elections in Odisha.