Kamal Nath likely to replace Ambika as in-charge of state

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 29

In the poll mode, the Congress has begun addressing organisational issues, top being the likely replacement of senior leader Ambika Soni as party general secretary in-charge of election in Uttarakhand.

Sources say 73-year-old Soni, Congress campaign committee chairperson for Punjab, had paved the way for party restructuring in Uttarakhand. She is believed to have asked the party high command to relieve herself of the Uttarakhand charge following both states together going to the polls in 2017. Ambika will, however, continue as party general secretary for Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, which goes to the polls after Punjab next year.

A prominent probable to replace Ambika Soni is Kamal Nath, currently handling only Haryana as party general secretary. Nath had to relinquish his charge of election-bound Punjab following controversy over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

The party now wants an “experienced”person to take charge in Uttarakhand where differences between Chief Minister Harish Rawat and state party chief Kishore Upadhyay need careful handling. The Congress is hopeful of regaining power after the BJP government’s misadventure in respect of imposition and final revocation of President’s rule.

Meanwhile, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today held elaborate discussions with all-party general secretaries and state in-charges on electoral strategy for the next year when Punjab, UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal and Gujarat will go to the polls. Rahul filled in for his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi who has not been able to meet leaders in the wake of her illness and shoulder dislocation for which she is still undergoing physiotherapy.

Rahul is learnt to have discussed issues that need to be flagged in specific states such as UP and Punjab and pan-India to keep the pressure going on on the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. The party will especially reach out to the farming and the unorganised labour community in UP where it plans to make the electoral battle a fight against communal BJP, besides promising development.

Among those who attended the meeting with Rahul were Congress general secretary (UP), Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni (in charge Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand), Kamal Nath (Haryana), BK Hariprasad (Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh), CP Joshi, Janardan Dwivedi and Gurudas Kamat.

Asha Kumari, Congress in-charge for Punjab and PC Chacko, in-charge Delhi also participated at the meeting, Rahul’s first discussion with party general secretaries since Sonia Gandhi took ill on August 2, the day of her roadshow in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary segment Varanasi.