A file photo of senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot with Mahendrajeet Singh
Malviya.
| Photo Credit: ROHIT JAIN PARAS
The Opposition Congress in Rajasthan has been caught in a difficult situation over speculations that its influential tribal leader and former Minister Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya is going to quit the party and join the Bharatiya Janata Party. Mr. Malviya, 63, has given enough indications that he is not happy with the way he has been treated in the party.
A Congress Working Committee member, Mr. Malviya is four-time MLA from Bagidora in Banswara district. He was also elected an MP from Banswara in 1998 and he served as a Minister twice in the Congress regimes in the State. His wife Resham Malviya is a three-time Zila Pramukh in Banswara.
Mr. Malviya, considered the Congress’s prominent face in southern Rajasthan’s tribal region, is reportedly miffed at not being appointed the Leader of Opposition after the party’s defeat in the 2023 Assembly election. The coveted post was given to much younger Dalit leader Tika Ram Jully.
Mr. Malviya’s dissatisfaction has assumed significance in the run-up to this year’s Lok Sabha elections, as he is reportedly willing to fight the polls at the Banswara-Dungarpur seat, where the BJP has been trying to make inroads after the emergence of Bharat Adivasi Party. The BJP may offer him the ticket from the Lok Sabha constituency if he opts to switch over.
The Bagidora MLA criticised the Congress leadership while interacting with journalists during his visit to New Delhi earlier this week. He said the vision which had propelled the party in the past did not exist any longer. “I was made a Minister only in the last two years of the [previous] Congress government. The party did not consider me for the Congress Legislature Party this time,” he said.
Senior Congress leaders, including former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Pradesh Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra, have met party MLAs and leaders from the tribal belt after calling them here in a damage control exercise. Mr. Dotasra said though anyone’s exit from the party would not make much of difference, it should not ideally happen.
Mr. Malviya was conspicuous by his absence during the filing of nomination papers by former Congress president Sonia Gandhi for Rajya Sabha election here earlier this week. However, he is said to have met Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma the same day and is reportedly in touch with the senior BJP leaders.
Of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the State, three are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and two of them are situated in Udaipur division. Mr. Malviya is likely to join the BJP during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Udaipur on February 20, when he will launch the party’s election campaign with a public meeting.
According to the rumours in the political circles, the Enforcement Directorate’s raids on the premises of Congress leader Dinesh Khodaniya, considered close to Mr. Malviya, have made an impact on him. Besides, his family relations with BJP leader Dhan Singh Rawat, who wants to bring him to the party, might have played a role in his probable move.