Union Minister for Corporate Affairs Sachin Pilot assumed charge as the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president at the party headquarters here on Tuesday.
He took a pledge to work along side party workers and face challenges as a team to win seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections. On his arrival, Mr. Pilot was accorded a warm welcome and taken to the PCC headquarters in a huge cavalcade that choked the city’s roads for several hours.
While thanking Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi for reposing confidence in him, Mr. Pilot said he would do his best to win seats for the party in the State in the Lok Sabha elections. He challenged the ruling BJP to first face him before thinking of harming the public or any Congress member.The new PCC president said the Congress formed the “soul of [the] nation” which could never be destroyed. He asked the members of the party to shed their differences and put up a united fight against “divisive and communal forces”. Referring to the recent communal violence in Pratapgarh, he said the State government did not take appropriate action.
AICC general secretary Gurudas Kamat, Union Ministers of State Namonarain Meena and Lal Chand Kataria, former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and CLP leader Rameshwar Dudi were among those present on the occasion.
Mr. Pilot presided over a meeting of the Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) of Congress after taking the charge as PCC president. In its unanimous decision, the PEC authorised Ms. Gandhi to select the candidates for Lok Sabha polls. The 36-year-old Union Minister is the youngest Congressman, after Mr. Gehlot, to be appointed the PCC chief.
Though he was born in Uttar Pradesh, he has strong roots in the desert State, where his father, the late Rajesh Pilot, shaped his political career in the Gujjar-dominated regions.
