Maharashtra elections the focus of Sonia Gandhi’s first meeting as interim Congress chief

Maharashtra Congress leaders told Sonia Gandhi that the party should put up heavyweight candidates against BJP bigwigs like CM Devendra Fadnavis.

File photo of Sonia Gandhi | PTI Photo

New Delhi: In her first meeting since taking over as the interim Congress president, Sonia Gandhi listened to Maharashtra Congress leaders urging “seniors to step up” and take on BJP heavyweights such as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the upcoming assembly polls.

“The BJP has some very strong candidates such as Fadnavis. Why can’t leaders such as Mukul Wasnik, Avinash Pandey and Nana Patole contest again them?” a senior Maharashtra Congress leader told ThePrint.

Wasnik, a former union minister and Congress general secretary, was considered a front-runner to be party president till it decided to go with Sonia instead. A four-time MP from Maharashtra, Wasnik has represented Ramtek and Buldhana.

Maharashtra Congress president Balasaheb Thorat, along with working presidents Nitin Raut, Basavraj M. Patil, Yashomati Thakur, Muzaffar Hussain and party secretary (organisation) K. C. Venugopal were present at the meeting.

“Sonia Gandhi told the leaders to submit their proposals without delay,” the senior leader said. “She said it’ll be a tough battle but not to back down from a fight.”

Maharashtra is likely to go to the polls in October this year.

‘Go solo if BJP does’

Another proposal that the Maharashtra leaders suggested at the meeting is that the party should contest the elections alone if the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance falls apart.

“The BJP thinks that it can win this election by itself,” the senior leader said. “We told Soniaji that we too should contest solo if the alliance doesn’t come together.”

According to the leader, the Maharashtra Congress unit foresees problems in the seat-sharing arrangements with its alliance partner Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which is led by Sharad Pawar.

“It isn’t senior Pawar who is the problem, it is junior (Ajit) Pawar who has his own ideas,” said the leader.

But others in the party believe this can backfire. “It may split the vote that we would normally secure,” another Maharashtra Congress leader told ThePrint.

The meeting also saw the leaders flag possible defections from the party, factionalism among the cadre, and the fund crunch that the Congress is facing. “The BJP is planning to spend Rs 25 crore per constituency, while we can barely scrape together a crore,” the first leader said.