Congress may replace Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil as Leader of Opposition

Congress may remove Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil as Leader of Opposition once the budget session is over, highly-placed sources from the party said. A section in the Congress has already started a whisper campaign against Mr Vikhe-Patil and, according to a party insider, MPCC president Ashok Chavan has put his political weight behind Vijay Vadettiwar.

A section within the Congress is unhappy with Mr Vikhe-Patil since his selection as LoP last year. According to party insiders, Mr Chavan had insisted on Vijay Vadettiwar’s name for the post of LoP before the party high command had selected Mr Vikhe-Patil for the post. However, as Mr Vikhe-Patil belongs to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s camp, he was preferred over Mr Vadettiwar.

“Initially, there were no issues between Mr Vikhe-Patil and Mr Chavan. However, the situation has changed in the last one year. Mr Vikhe-Patil is financially independent and has quite good control over party legislators. He does not need advice from Mr Chavan in every situation. This has created differences between Mr Chavan, who is trying to gain complete control over the state unit of Congress and Mr Vikhe-Patil.”

The recent issue of suspension of AIMIM legislator Waris Pathan and Congress’ move to support BJP over the issue has provided an opportunity for the anti-Vikhe-Patil group to complain to party vice-president Mr Gandhi.

“In Delhi, a picture was created against Mr Vikhe-Patil of how he was in favour of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and did not take a stand against the BJP in the state Assembly,” said a party insider.

At any cost, the state Congress want to bring Mr Vadettiwar in place of Mr Vikhe-Patil, an insider said. This he said was because Mr Vadettiwar would always depend on MPCC president Mr Chavan before taking decisions.

However, Mr Vikhe-Patil seems to be stable and confident. According to Mr Vikhe-Patil, nobody is against him and he has the confidence of all the party leaders.

In the context of the MIM issue, Mr Vikhe-Patil said, he had given a clarification to the party high command. “It was not our demand to suspend the MIM legislator, nor had I supported the BJP who were aggressive about suspending him,” Mr Vikhe-Patil reiterated.

Mr Chavan could not be contacted, but one of the legislators supporting him claimed that Mr Vikhe-Patil had not taken the consent of the legislators before taking a decision in the House. “He did not ask even the MPCC president (Ashok Chavan) before supporting the BJP demand to suspend Pathan,” said a close confidant of Mr Chavan.

After the suspension of Mr Pathan, Mr Chavan had said that he was not aware about the Congress’ decision and the LoP had not informed him about his stand in the House.