Days after Eknath Shinde government won the trust vote in Maharashtra, State Congress chief Nana Patole held a meeting with the party’s top leadership at party president Sonia Gandhi’s 10 Janpath residence on Thursday.
Though there was no official statement on the meeting from the All India Congress Committee (AICC), former party chief Rahul Gandhi and general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal are said to have attended the meeting.
This is also the first meeting of top leaders with Mr. Patole after the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The timing of the meeting assumes significance as nearly a dozen of the Congress MLAs in Maharashtra couldn’t participate in the voting process. While some were absent, others were late to reach the floor of the Assembly and were not allowed to vote.
Though the Congress backed the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction, many believe that Congress MLAs were divided over the issue.
The issue of the renaming of Aurangabad and Osmanabad had been one of the points on which the Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray-led government had differed.
The Congress high command had taken serious note of the cross-voting during the Legislative Council elections in which the party’s first choice and Dalit leader Chandrakant Handore lost while the Congress’ second candidate and Mumbai unit Congress chief, Bhai Jagtap, managed to become an MLC.
While two MLAs are said to have cross-voted, five Congress MLAs who were meant to vote for the party’s first choice are believed to have voted for the second nominee.
Hinting at disciplinary action, Mr. Patole had then tweeted, “The party has taken a serious view of the defeat of Chandrakant Handore in the MLC elections”.
