Ajay Maken, a leader in the Congress and an observer for Rajasthan, described the “unofficial” meeting between state minister Shanti Dhariwal and the rebel MLAs from the Ashok Gehlot camp as an “undisciplined move” and claimed that the party has never permitted “conditional resolutions,” in contrast to what the group is requesting. Maken, who is leaving for Delhi today after the Gehlot camp MLAs refused to meet with the observers, which also included Mallikarjun Kharge, claimed that Shanti Dhariwal, Mahesh Joshi, and Pratap Singh met with them in the MLAs’ place and imposed three conditions, one of which was that they not meet one-on-one.
“The meeting of the CLP was scheduled with the approval of the Chief Minister at his residence. For those MLAs who did not turn up, we had been saying that we are here to hear everybody’s issues. We will listen to their issues one-to-one. Whatever you will say will be conveyed in Delhi. Shanti Dhariwal, Mahesh Hoshi and Pratap Singh came to us as their representatives. They put forward three conditions,” Maken told media persons here.
The Rajasthan breakaway Congress leaders’ demands were described in detail by the Congress leader. “One was to announce the implementation of the resolution of handing over the responsibility (to appoint CM) to the Congress President after October 19; we said it’ll be a conflict of interest. If CM Ashok Gehlot becomes Congress chief after October 19, he can’t empower himself over his own resolution. 2nd condition- they wanted to come in groups when we said that we shall talk to everyone individually,” he said.
“We said that it has always been the Congress’ tradition that we hold talks one-on-one so that the MLAs can speak their mind without any pressure. The third condition was that the CM should be from the 102 MLAs who are loyal to CM Ashok Gehlot, not Sachin Pilot or his group. We said that their exact sentiments will be conveyed to the Congress chief, who will take the decision after talking to CM Ashok Gehlot and everyone else. But they kept on insisting that all three points should be a part of the resolution and that the resolution should be based on these conditions. Congress has never allowed conditional resolutions to take place in 75 years of its history,” he mentioned.
“We will present the report to Sonia Gandhi. We waited for more MLAs to come, but they didn’t. Mallikarjun Kharge & I are going to Delhi to submit our report to the Congress chief. No one has any idea about the number and identities of the MLAs who resigned or not,” the Congress leader added.
He responded that a decision would be made later when asked if Dhariwal, who organised the MLA gathering at his home on Sunday night, would face any punishment. “It is an act of indiscipline. When an official meeting has been called, and if a parallel unofficial meeting is conducted, it is an act of indiscipline. We will see what action to be taken,” he stated.
The MLAs needed to find a way out of the political impasse, the Congress leader hoped. “We have no idea how many MLAs have tendered their resignations. We hope that all the Congress MLAs will sit and talk and find a way out,” Maken said.
