‘Scindia for chief’ poster appears, vanishes in MP

Bhopal: A poster demanding to make senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia AICC president in the wake of Rahul Gandhi's resignation was seen outside the Madhya Pradesh Congress office in Bhopal for a few hours on Monday morning, before it was removed.

“This is an appeal to respected Rahul Gandhi that the pride of our nation and senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia sho-uld be made party president,” read the po-ster that surfaced a day after Mr Scindia's resignation as Congress general secretary after the party's national election debacle.

The poster, however, exposed factionalism in the state Congress.

State minister Sajjan Singh Verma, known as a close aide of chief minister Kamal Nath, said the poster betrayed “over-enthusiasm of Scindia supporters”.

He demanded that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra be made the next Congress president.

Congress spokesman Pankaj Chaturvedi, however, sought a larger role for Mr Scindia, either as AICC president or state party president since Mr Gandhi has already announced that neither he nor his sister would be new AICC president.

Mr Gandhi announced his decision to resign as Congress president last week. He said he had asked party leaders to choose his successor and also that he wouldn't participate in the process.

Several Congress leaders have quit since then.

Mr Scindia who has lost Lok Sabha elections in Guna resigned from the post of AICC general secretary on Sunday.

On Sunday, Mr Scindia tweeted: “Accepting the people's verdict and taking accountability, I had submitted my resignation as general secretary of ICC to Shri @RahulGandhi. I thank him for entrusting me with this responsibilityand for giving me the opportunity to serve our party.”