KaMat uPset, but will Meet suPPorters
Kamat is unhappy that Congress is sidelining senior leaders like him.
Congress general secretary Gurudas Kamat who has stayed incomminicado after announcing his resignation from the party, will return to Mumbai and meet his supporters on Sunday. This is the first time the leader will be seen in Mumbai again since his resignation. His supporters carried out vociferous protests outside the regional Congress committee office. Over 28 corporators supporting him threatened to resign over the issue, only to be in- structed by him to withdraw their protest.
Sources in Mumbai Congress told The Sunday Guardian that an SMS has been sent by some members close to Gurudas Kamat about this. “I received a message saying that Gurudas Kamat is going to meet people on Sunday and sort out any issues that they have,” a Mumbai Congress leader told this correspondent. Meanwhile, none of the state leaders from Maharashtra has been able to get in touch with him till now. Kamat is upset that Rahul Gandhi has been giving prominence to Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam, sidelining senior leaders like him in the city.
The general mood is that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi should have taken note of Kamat’s discontent. “When he wrote a letter to them saying he was toying with the idea of resigning, that letter went unanswered. When a letter is sent by such a senior leader, someone who is the AICC general secretary, then someone should have met him,” a senior Congress state leader said.
“When Rahul Gandhi had come for a padayatra, the Mumbai Congress president did not show any courtesy to even inform senior leaders like Gurudas Kamat about Rahulji’s itenerary. Leave aside the fact that he was not invited at all. The person in-charge (Nirupam) should have had the courtesy to inform the exact programme of the national leader,” the senior leader said.
“I called him quite a few times, but could not speak with him,” said Prithviraj Chavan, former Maharashtra Chief Minister. “He is reluctant to talk out of turn. Even otherwise, he rarely attends calls. He calls and speaks only when he wants to convey something,” Chavan said.
In the meantime, discontent continues to seethe in a faction of Mumbai Congress which held vociferous protests against Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam outside the regional office of the Congress.