Congress's hall of shame in Maharashtra

Maharashtra Congress leaders have caused a series of embarrassments to the high command in a short span of time.

Maharashtra Congress leaders have caused a series of embarrassments to the high command in a short span of time.

HT Image

First, it was Pune MP Suresh Kalmadi who, as a chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, was mired in corruption charges.

He left leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh red-faced.

The Centre has ordered a probe into the Games mess.

State Congress chief Manikrao Thakre also rocked the party boat ahead of Sonia's public rally in Sewagram near Nagpur early this month.

Thakre's conversation with ex-minister Satish Chaturvedi, that the ministers were asked to contribute R10 lakh each for meeting rally expenses and that chief minister Ashok Chavan was reluctant to pay up R2 crore, was aired by news channels.

The party went into damage-control mode and Sonia attended the rally to please party workers. But the embarrassment was writ large and the party almost decided to give Thakre the boot.

Before the state unit's cleansing could begin, Chavan's alleged link in the Adarsh society scam has landed the party in further trouble.