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All 18 Cong MLAs from J’khand to meet Rahul today
All 18 Congress members of Jharkhand legislative assembly, including the four ministers in the incumbent Hemant Soren-led government, would be meeting former party president Rahul Gandhi at his residence in the national capital on Tuesday, party sources said.
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All 18 Congress members of Jharkhand legislative assembly, including the four ministers in the incumbent Hemant Soren-led government, would be meeting former party president Rahul Gandhi at his residence in the national capital on Tuesday, party sources said.
This will be their first meeting with Gandhi since they met him after the party formed government in the state in December 2019 in alliance with senior partner Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
The development comes within a fortnight of former All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Jharkhand RPN Singh joining the BJP on January 24. A few Congress legislators had alleged that Singh was conspiring to pull down the state government in Jharkhand in collusion with BJP and had deliberately kept the top leadership unavailable
State unit chief Rakesh Thakur, however, described it as a routine meeting.
“The last time party legislators had met the top leadership in groups was after the government formation. Soon after, the country witnessed lockdown due to Covid-19. During the maiden visit of the new party in-charge, the legislators had urged to meet Rahul Gandhi. The meeting has been fixed accordingly,” said Thakur, also an MLA.
The Jharkhand unit of the Congress has been a divided house in the recent past. Ahead of the assembly polls in 2019, four former state presidents including Any Kumar, Pradeep Balmuchu, Sukhdeo Bhagat and Sarfaraz Ahmed, had quit the party.
Three of them, barring Ahmed, who crossed over to JMM and is a sitting MLA, have since returned to the party fold.
While all constituents of the ruling alliance have maintained it is running smoothly, several Congress legislators have complained in public that the bureaucracy does not listen to them. They have also been demanding to fill the vacant posts in the board and corporations, besides filling the vacant single berth in the 12-member state cabinet.
