By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Cabinet expansion in Rajasthan and organisational revamp in Gujarat Congress is on hold awaiting final approval of former party chief Rahul Gandhi, who is abroad on a personal visit.
Rahul is expected to return before the start of the winter session of Parliament on November 29. Decision on changes in the two states is likely after that.
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi last week.
Sources said a meeting of Gehlot is likely with Rahul before the reshuffle and changes in state Congress, while Pilot has already met the former Congress chief. Pilot has been pushing for Cabinet expansion to accommodate people from his camp in the government and the organisation.
Sources further said that Gehlot reportedly wants to delay the expansion citing elections to four Rajya Sabha seats in the state next year.
In his report to party high command, he has said there are chances of Congress winning at least three of them with support of smaller parties and Independents and changes in the organisation has to be made keeping in mind this.
Terms of four BJP Rajya Sabha MPs — Omprakash Mathur, K J Alphons, Ramkumar Verma and Harshvardhan Singh Dungarpur — end in July 2022. In the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly, Congress has 108 MLAs, BJP 71, 13 are Independents and the rest are Left and other parties.
During his meeting with Sonia, Gehlot said the party should reward MLAs who saved the government when Pilot rebelled last year.
