After Lok Sabha defeat for Pune city seat, Congress members demand Arvind Shinde’s removal as party unit head

City Congress is led by interim chief Arvind Shinde for the last few years. The Congress had fielded Ravindra Dhangekar for the Lok Sabha elections with the hope it could win back the from the BJP, who had been holding it for the last 10 years. Dhangekar lost the election by 1,23,038 votes to Murlidhar Mohol of BJP but reduced the victory margin from that of 3,24,628 in 2019.

Following Dhangekar’s defeat, there was a lot of unrest within the Congress and a faction that included former state minister Ramesh Bagwe, former corporators Datta Bahirat, Chandu Kadam and Avinash Bagwe, office-bearers Ramesh Iyer, Noordin Ali Somji and a few others met Ramesh Chennithala AICC, Maharashtra incharge, to complain against Shinde. Shinde is participating in the annual pilgrimage to Pandharpur and was unavailable for comments till end of the pilgrimage on July 17.

“The party’s leadership accepted that the Pune seat would have been won in the Lok Sabha elections if everyone in the party had given it their best while campaigning. It was aware of all those who didn’t work wholeheartedly in the election campaign,” said a Congress leader, who was part of the delegation that met Chennithala.

No asssurance was given to their demand, but the party leadership conveyed they will look into the issue. “All the members of the delegation were asked to avoid a repeat of lok sabha election in the assembly polls and win seats for the party as well as MVA candidates,” the Congress leader said.

The city Congress is going to insist on Kasba, Pune Cantonment and Shivajinagar assembly segment seats in the MVA for the assembly elections due to its strong presence in the constituencies.

The delegation has also decided to meet party leaders in Delhi to point out issues in the city Congress.