Jignesh Mevani, six other MLAs appointed working presidents of Gujarat Congress

Apart from Mevani, MLAs Lalit Kagathara, Rutvik Makwana, Ambarish J Der, Himmatsingh Patel, Kadir Pirzada and Indravijaysinh Gohil were named Gujarat Congress working presidents

Updated on: Jul 8, 2022, 09:20:17 IST

By Maulik Pathak

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Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday approved a proposal to appoint seven working presidents in the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC), including Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, ahead of state assembly elections scheduled to be held in December.

Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani. (PTI File Photo)

Mevani, who won as an independent candidate from Vadgam constituency in the 2017 state polls elections, has publicly supported the party for the past five years. Although he has been seen sharing stage with senior Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi and even addressing press conferences with state party leaders, Mevani is to officially join the Congress only now, sources close to the development said.

Apart from Mevani, MLAs Lalit Kagathara, Rutvik Makwana, Ambarish J Der, Himmatsingh Patel, Kadir Pirzada and Indravijaysinh Gohil were named working presidents.

Also Read:Jignesh Mevani calls BJP-led Gujarat govt ‘useless’, says ‘insult to people…’

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said in an official statement that the proposal to appoint Mevani and the six others was approved with immediate effect.

Recently, Patidar leader Hardik Patel, who was the working president of GPCC, quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat.

Earlier in March, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) released a mega list of office bearers in Gujarat, which inlcuded 75 general secretaries and 25 vice-presidents. It also had 19 Congress members who have been appointed as district committee presidents.

“This is the new structure of GPCC. The earlier one was scrapped two and half years ago. It had more than 500 office bearers. The new structure also might reach close to that number once all the appointments are made,” said sources in Congress.

Some of the notable names in the list included Satyajit Gaekwad president of All India Youth Congress and a former Member of Parliament. He has been appointed as the vice president of GPCC. Another Congress leader Vijay Dave, who contested from Ahmedabad’s Ellisbridge constituency in 2017 Gujarat polls and lost to BJP’s Rakesh Shah, has also been appointed as the GPCC vice president.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maulik Pathak
He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.Read More

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