Delhi: Mallikarjun Kharge, Ajay Maken to submit report to Sonia Gandhi on Rajasthan political crisis
Sep 26, 2022
New Delhi [India], September 26 : Amid the ongoing political crisis in Rajasthan, Congress observers for the state, Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken reached Delhi on Monday after the Gehlot camp MLAs refused to hold a one-to-one meeting with them.
Both will submit the report pertaining to the crisis in Rajasthan's politics. 
"We arrived in Delhi after meeting three MLAs in Jaipur. We are going to give our report to Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi," said Ajay Maken ahead of his meeting with Congress's interim president.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge after arriving in Delhi from Jaipur said the decision will be taken by Sonia Gandhi after they submit the report.
"We are going to 10, Janpath and will meet Sonia Gandhi. We will apprise her about the events (about the Rajasthan Congress crisis). She will eventually take the decision on it," Kharge said.
Earlier, Maken on Sunday met with three members from the Gehlot camp - Shanti Dhariwal, C.P. Joshi and Pratap Khachriyawas who had put forward three proposals.
Later after the meeting, Maken told the reporters that the three MLAs forwarded three proposals which they did not accept as it raised a conflict of interest.
"Their first proposal was to announce the implementation of the resolution of handing over the final responsibility of appointing the chief minister to the Congress high command and to pass it after October 19.
"We told them that this raises conflict of interest, as if Gehlot is elected as the Congress president then this proposal will empower him further after October 19 and there can be no bigger conflict of interest than this so we did not do this," Maken said.
Further, Maken said that their second condition was that they wanted to come in groups and when we said that we wanted to talk to each of them individually as it has been a practice of the Congress to take feedback from each leader. However, they did not accept this."
"Their third condition was that the chief minister should be picked from the 102 MLAs who were loyal to CM Gehlot and not from the Pilot group," Maken said.
Maken said that "the three Gehlot camp supporters insisted on us meeting their three conditions and we told them that their exact sentiments will be conveyed to Congress chief, who will take the decision after talking to CM Ashok Gehlot and everyone else."
"We waited for more MLAs to come but they didn't come. Now Mallikarjun Kharge and I are going to Delhi to submit our report to the Congress president," said Maken.
Nobody has any idea about the number and the identities of the MLAs who have resigned or not, Maken said.
A legislative party meeting was scheduled on Sunday evening at the residence of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in the presence of the observers, which was attended by Sachin Pilot and his camp MLAs. However, the Gehlot loyalists had held a meeting with Cabinet Minister Shanti Dhariwal at his residence, following which over 90 MLAs had submitted their resignations to Speaker CP Joshi.
Pilot, is being seen as the successor of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who is all set to contest the Congress president election scheduled on October 17. The Rajasthan deputy chief minister late last night conducted a second round of meeting with the AICC observers.
The Gehlot loyalists want someone from their own camp to be chosen as the next Chief Minister, instead of Pilot, who, according to them, had revolted against his own party back in 2020.
