Rawat placated, will lead Cong election committee
NEW DELHI: Harish Rawat has been made the face of the Congress in Uttarakhand ahead of polls in the hill state, the former chief minister said on Friday after a four-hour-long meeting with the party’s central leadership that was also attended by Rahul Gandhi.
The move appeared to quell his rebellion, which first surfaced in a series of Twitter posts two days ago, at least for now.
“I will lead as the campaign committee chairman and everyone will support me,’’ Rawat told reporters in the Capital. The party, however, did not go as far as naming Rawat as the chief ministerial candidate at a
time when Congress is attempting to wrest power back from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Kadam, kadam badhaye ja,
Congress ke geet gaye ja (Let’s move forward step by step, let’s sing for the Congress party),’’ Rawat said.
NEW DELHI: Harish Rawat’s position as the face of the Congress in Uttarakhand ahead of polls in the hill state was reiterated, the former chief minister said Friday after a four-hourlong meeting with the party’s central leadership that was also attended by Rahul Gandhi.
The move appeared to quell his rebellion, which first surfaced in a series of Twitter posts two days ago, at least for now.
“I will lead as the campaign committee chairman and everyone will support me,’’ Rawat told reporters in the Capital. In other words, people aware of the details said, the upcoming elections in Uttarakhand will be fought under him. The party, however, did not go as far as naming Rawat as the chief ministerial candidate at a time when the Congress is attempting to wrest power back from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“After elections, the legislature party will sit and decide who will lead them. In Uttarakhand, we will follow that,’’ Rawat said, adding that he was no longer thinking of either retirement or quitting the party. “Kadam, kadam badhaye ja, Congress ke geet gaye ja (Let’s move forward step by step, let’s sing for the Congress party),’’ Rawat added.
His words were in sharp contrast to a Twitter thread on Wednesday that suggested the Congress was heading to an internal political crisis in yet another state.
“Isn’t it strange, one has to swim in the sea in the form of forthcoming electoral battle... instead of cooperation, the organisational structure at most places is turning its face away or is playing a negative role... There are many crocodiles... On whose directions one has to swim, their nominees are tying my hands and feet,” Rawat wrote on Wednesday.
The twitter thread went on to say that he was contemplating retirement.
In the meeting on Friday, which was primarily chaired by the party’s organisational general secretary KC Venugopal with Rahul Gandhi dropping in towards the end, the Congress leadership tried to assuage Rawat’s feelings of being left out of decision making.
“Even though he is the head of the campaign committee, he felt that he wasn’t getting his way. So we tried to speak to both sides and get them to listen to each other, to keep the other side in the loop,’’ said a person who attended the meeting, asking not to be named.
The other attendees to the meeting, which comes just two months before the state elections included the AICC in charge of the state Devendra Yadav, the state congress chief Ganesh Godiyal, and legislature party leader Pritam Singh, among others.
“There is no doubt that he is the face of the Congress in the state but the Congress president will decide who will be chief minister. Harish Rawat is happy with that,’’ said a second leader aware of the details.
The Congress is looking to dislodge the BJP from power in the hill state, which Rawat served as CM between 2014 and 2017.
Rawat served as chief minister of Uttarakhand between 2014 and 2017, and the party sees 2022 as a big opportunity since the BJP is roiled by troubles of its own. The ruling party in the state has changed its chief minister three times in the last year. In the 70-member assembly, the BJP has 55 members and the Congress has only 12.
People aware of the matter said that there is a section of the party which feels Rawat, at 73, should step aside and make way for a new leadership. Gandhi was said to be keen on an alternative face, like the his pick in Punjab, Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Channi who replaced former CM Captain Amarinder Singh after his public spat with the party’s state unit head Navjot Singh Sidhu. It was significant, therefore, that the party’s Dalit leader in Uttarakhand, Yashpal Arya, who recently rejoined the Congress from the BJP, also attended Friday’s meeting.
The latest controversy is a blow to the party, which has been tackling infighting in Punjab, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Kerala, and several other states, in recent months.
The turn of events surrounding Rawat’s public ire is ironic because, just a few months ago, he was firefighting between Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu, the warring factions of the Punjab unit of the Congress, as the party’s general secretary in charge of the state.
Amarinder Singh, who left the Congress in November, was among the first to respond to Rawat’s tweets on Wednesday. “You reap what you sow,” he had written.