New Appointments In Rajasthan Congress: Gehlot-Dotasra Camp's Upper Hand Over Sachin Pilot's

The much-awaited list of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) office-bearers in Rajasthan was released on Monday (10 July) by PCC chief Govind Singh Dotasra.

25 new district presidents have been appointed along with 21 vice-presidents, 48 general secretaries and 121 secretaries of the state PCC.

Lalit Tunwal has been promoted to the post of general secretary from a secretary, while Sitaram Agarwal retained his position as treasurer of the PCC.

Most of the posts were vacant since former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and PCC chief had revolted in 2020 and the then committee was dissolved.

Since then, only 13 district presidents were appointed, of which four had already resigned. The PCC also had just 39 members.

However, it was heard that Dotasra had made a list of 85 members to be appointed to the PCC but the list was put on stay by the Congress high command.

Now, reportedly, the same list has come to the fore with some new additions to make it inclusive of all the communities.

The list comes a few days after CM Ashok Gehlot and Pilot were known to make a truce and agreed to contest elections under a "united leadership".

Balance with tilted scales

About two dozen leaders from the Pilot camp have got a place. Two of them- Bandikui MLA of Dausa district Gajraj Khatana and former Karauli MLA Darshan Singh Gurjar have been appointed as vice president.

Hari Prasad Bairwa is Tonk district president while Indraj Gurjar, Mukesh Bhakar, Rakesh Pareek, Mahendra Singh Gurjar, Prashant Sharma, Rajendra Sharma, Rajesh Choudhary, Suresh Mishra and Sanjay Jatav have been appointed as general secretary from Pilot camp.

Other than them, most of the new appointees come from Gehlot and Dotasra camps, especially the district presidents.

Considered close to Pilot, Ved Prakash Solanki, Mahendra Khedi, Lalit Yadav and Nimbaram Garasiya have been dropped along with other big leaders like Pratap Singh Kachhariyawas and Govind Meghwal.

While the Congress claims of inclusivity, no woman has been appointed as district president. Only one current MLA, Gopal Meena from Jaipur Rural got the post of district president.

The Congress team has 60 per cent new faces as the old-timers were dropped based on resolutions of Udaipur Sankalp Shivir of last year.

The team has 35 members of the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, 20 of the Scheduled Tribe (ST), 15 of the minority community and 55 general.

Jat community has got a good representation with 30 appointments as they have a significant influence over 60 of the 200 assembly seats.