Major revamp in Congress before Rahul Gandhi takes charge

New Delhi: Before his coronation, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has embarked on a venture to set his house in order. Mr Gandhi, who is set to take over as the party chief in October, will be replacing the state units chiefs of Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Kerala. The state unit chiefs of these states will be finalised by next week.

With complaints of “non-performance” pouring in against Madhya Pradesh state unit chief Arun Yadav, senior party leader Kamal Nath is all set to replace him. Madhya Pradesh being an electorally crucial state, Mr Gandhi intends to hand it over to a “seasoned and experienced” leader. While the name of senior leader and former state chief minister Digvijay Singh was doing the rounds, sources revealed that the party high command was “not interested in offering him a crucial position, particularly after the mess up in Goa. As for Jyotiraditya Scindia, sources said, Mr Gandhi “needs him in Parliament and at the national level”.

The party is looking for a dalit face as state unit chief in election-bound Himachal Pradesh. The argument being forwarded by the Congress spin doctors was that while the chief minister “should be from the upper caste, state unit chief needs to be from the backward community”. Incidentally in the upper caste-dominated Himachal Pradesh, the dalit population is around 25 per cent.  

Uttar Pradesh state unit chief Raj Babbar had quit after the party was routed in the UP Assembly polls. The Congress now intends to put a brahmin face at the helm of the state unit. The race is between Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tewari and former Lok Sabha MP from Varanasi Rajesh Mishra.

After the erosion of its dalit votebank in UP, the Congress strategists feel that the party should foc-us on the upper caste consolidation, while the backward votebank should be left to its ally — the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP. The Congress seemed to be “confident” that the SP would continue to be its ally even during the 2019 general elections.

In Haryana, former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda could be replacing state unit chief Ashok Tanwar.