The Congress State unit in Telangana reads Digvijaya Singh’s exit as the party leader in charge of the State as the central leadership’s desire to put a full-time functionary in his place ahead of the Assembly polls in 2019 in the State. More so because the party unit is still in the doldrums after being virtually wiped out in 2014 following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh
Mr. Singh’s waning interest in party affairs in the State and complaints about “favouritism” led to his being relieved of charge of the State, Congress leaders in Hyderabad say. He is now left with only Andhra Pradesh.
But several senior central leaders say this is also part of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s desire to have an in-charge for each State so as to be able to fix accountability. Koppula Raju, AICC SC Cell Chairman considered close to Mr. Gandhi, said: “It [Mr. Singh’s exit] is a part of the new policy and nothing more than that.”
So, for instance, recently, party general secretary Ambika Soni, who oversaw Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, is now in charge only of J&K. Party general secretary B.K. Hariprasad is now left with only Odisha after being in charge of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand too.
In Mr. Singh’s case, he was earlier relieved of Karnataka, which goes to the polls next year, and Goa. Many senior party leaders said that Mr. Singh’s failure to ensure the formation of a Congress government in Goa, where the party emerged as the single largest after elections earlier this year, had annoyed the top leadership.
New appointees
Four new general secretaries who have been appointed in recent months, Ashok Gehlot for Gujarat, Sushil Kumar Shinde for Himachal Pradesh, Avinash Pande for Rajasthan and K.C. Venugopal for Karnataka, have all been given one State each. And in the coming months, other general secretaries who have more than one State are expected to shed some of their responsibilities to accommodate a larger number of functionaries.
Meanwhile, in Telangana, a former AICC functionary said, “Every senior leader of stature had one or the other issue with Mr. Singh’s style of functioning.”
A Telangana unit office-bearer added, “He used to come to Hyderabad by the morning flight and leave by night. Is this the way the party will grow in the State? No effort was made by him to interact with the district leadership to assess the ground situation.” After the party fared badly in three byelections, including to the Warangal Lok Sabha seat, no review meeting was held, he added.
They stressed that when police high-handedness against Dalits in Nerella was highlighted, Mr. Singh failed to visit the place. “When former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar can attend the protest, his presence would have boosted cadre morale,” another leader said.
