All is not well in Maharashtra congress, somewhere the state unit chief Nana Patole is playing spoiler for Congress. Young leader and The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman Sachin Sawant, who has been always at the frontage to present the party’s argument while taking on BJP on a number of issues. He is been strongly guarding the interest of Congress in the worst of its scenarios. He has recently resigned from his post.
The spark was the state unit chief Nana Patole’s decision to appoint Atul Londhe as the MPCC’s chief spokesman. Sawant, who was the media in charge for more than ten years, has sent a letter to the high command with a plea to relieve him from the responsibility of spokesman and assign him a new job. Sawant will continue to work in his capacity as the state Congress general secretary.
Sawant was agitated over the appointment of Londhe, who had quit the Nationalist Congress Party and joined the Congress in November 2016, as the chief spokesman. In the new arrangement, Sawant as the spokesman will have to take tips from Londhe before arguing the party’s official line in the press, media and social media. Sawant was clearly not comfortable with the changes and preferred to step down as the spokesman.
One week ago, around 300 Congress party workers from Palghar, Dahanu, Boisar and Wada have submitted their resignation to Rahul Gandhi and the All-India Congress Committee in charge of Maharashtra HK Patil, over the appointment of Praful Patil as the new Palghar district chief by MPCC(I) Nana Patole.
The letter states that Patole was instrumental in appointing Patil as the new district chief without even consulting or discussing with office bearers at Palghar. It alleges that Patole has brought casteist colour to the party as they both belong to the Kunbi caste.
“Patil was earlier with Kunbi Sena and supported the Bharatiya Janata Party Lok Sabha candidate Vishwanath Patil in 2014. He later switched sides once Patole joined the Congress and Patil was given the prime post,” said a party worker.
“We are paying the price of being loyal to the Congress party and it is up to Rahul Gandhi to decide whether the party needs loyalists or opportunists, who joined the Congress for their selfish needs,” he added.
A copy of the letter has also been sent to senior Congress leader KC Venugopal. In the just-concluded Palghar Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti bypoll, Congress was drubbed heavily and finished fourth with some candidates even losing their deposits.
