Congress on Thursday announced that spokesperson and leader Randeep Surjewala has been made the general secretary in-charge of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. The rejig announcement comes on hours after rival Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) released their first list of 39 candidates for the poll bound state.
Madhya Pradesh is slated to go into polls in Novermber or December this year. Notably, Madhya Pradesh polls is also one of the five most crucial assembly elections yet to be conducted ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.
Randeep Surjewala is the in-charge of Karnataka. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge announced that the additional responsibility of Madhya Pradesh has also been handed over to Surjewala.
In Madhya Pradesh Surjewala replaces Jai Prakash Agarwal as the State Congress in charge.
In Madhya Pradesh Congress looks to reclaim power which was taken from them despite being voted winner in the 2018 assembly elections. A walk-out by Jyotiraditya Scindia, usurped the elected- Kamal Nath government, and BJP came to power with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as the CM in 2019.
Jyotiraditya Scindia later joined BJP, and now holds the position of Union Minister of Civil Aviation with the BJP-led NDA government at the centre.
The Congress also announced that MLA Ajay Rai would be made the chief of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit.
Also, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge appointed Mukul Wasnik as general secretary in-charge of Gujarat, replacing Raghu Sharma.
Kharge appointed Rai, who had unsuccessfully contested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, as the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, with immediate effect, replacing Dalit leader Brijlal Khabri.
“The party appreciates the contribution of the outgoing PCC president Brijlal Khabri, Ex-MP, and all the zonal presidents,” the party said in a statement issued by general secretary organisation K C Venugopal.
Surjewala was recently appointed as a senior election observer by the party in Madhya Pradesh which goes to polls later this year.
An organisational overhaul of several state units of the Congress is underway and more appointments are likely to be made in the coming days.
(With agency inputs)
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Updated: 17 Aug 2023, 09:26 PM IST