90 MLAs skipped CLP meet in Sept: Gehlot loyalists meet Kharge, MLA reminds they kept him waiting in Jaipur

Among the many Congress leaders who met Kharge in New Delhi were Rajasthan ministers Mahesh Joshi and Shanti Dhariwal.

The two senior MLAs, along with Congress leader Dharmendra Rathore, were served show cause notices last month by the Congress leadership over their role in organising a parallel meeting of MLAs before the CLP meeting called by the high command.

As pictures of Joshi and Dhariwal congratulating Kharge on Wednesday started making rounds of the social media, Congress MLA from Osian Divya Maderna took to Twitter to slam the duo.

Kharge being sworn in as education minister in the Devaraj Urs cabinet for the first time in the mid-70s. Urs is seen seated behind Governor Umashankar Dixit. (Photo Credit: Samartha — a festschrift volume for Mallikarjun Kharge, edited by Dr S S Marulaiah, and published in 2005.)

“The conspirators against the high command are the first to go to Delhi to congratulate the new Congress president. Incidentally, Mr. Kharge was one of the observers sent to Jaipur to attend the legislature party meeting who later submitted a written report to the disciplinary committee and on the basis of which the notices were issued,” tweeted Maderna sharing pictures of Dhariwal and Joshi meeting Kharge and handing him bouquets.

“How time changes – They didn’t even come to meet despite Kharge ji called them many times, they boycotted the meeting of the legislature party and held a parallel meeting and when the chief whip (Joshi) and parliamentary affairs ministers (Dhariwal) came as representatives (of MLAs), they put a condition in front of Kharge ji that whatever decision is taken should be taken after October 19 and that we will only meet Sonia Gandhi,” Maderna added in another tweet.

Incidentally, Kharge was appointed as observer by the Congress high command for the CLP meeting that was scheduled to take place on the evening of September 25.

It was widely speculated that the meeting would pave the way for Pilot to become the CM as Gehlot was at that time the frontrunner for the Congress president’s post. But the CLP meeting couldn’t take place after around 90 Gehlot loyalist MLAs held a parallel meeting at Dhariwal’s residence and submitted their resignation to Assembly Speaker CP Joshi.

Back then, too, Osian MLA Maderna, who was among the few MLAs to turn up for the official CLP meeting, had lambasted Dhariwal and Joshi and had also asked for their resignation for defying the Congress high command.

Dhariwal and Rathore are learnt to have expressed their confidence and loyalty towards the party’s high command in reply to the notices served to them.

They are also learnt to have said a parallel meeting wasn’t called, but the MLAs had gathered for discussion since there was apprehension among them that they were not being consulted about the change in leadership in the state, and that those who had rebelled in 2020 may be handed over the reins in Rajasthan.

The political crisis had resulted in Gehlot taking “moral responsibility” for the circumstances and eventually pulling out of the race for the party’s top post.