The Congress’s decision to nominate Imran Pratapgarhi, the party’s minority department chairman, for the Rajya Sabha elections from the Maharashtra quota has drawn voices of dissatisfaction within the party. Maharashtra Congress leader Ashish Deshmukh on Tuesday wrote to Congress president Sonia Gandhi announcing his resignation from the post of general secretary of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.
Calling it an injustice on Congress workers, Deshmukh objected to Uttar Pradesh leader Imran Pratapgarhi being named the party’s selection from Maharashtra. Another leader Vishwabandhu Rai wrote to Sonia Gandhi, expressing his displeasure over picking Pratapgarhi.
Their letter comes after another senior Congress leader from the state, Nagma, had on Monday expressed disappointment on Pratapgarhi being chosen for the upper house of Parliament.
“Imposing an outside candidate will not benefit the party in terms of growth. This is injustice towards general Congress workers in Maharashtra,” Deshmukh said, adding that he will continue to work with the Congress party “as a loyal Congress worker” and fulfil his commitments.
On Sunday, the Congress had released its list of Rajya Sabha candidates, causing massive resentment in the ranks. Pratapgarhi, 34, is a poet.
In 2019, Pratapgarhi had contested the Lok Sabha election from Moradabad on a Congress ticket but lost his to the BJP candidate.
Taking a dig at his party over the selection of Rajya Sabha candidates, Congress MP Manish Tewari said the upper house had become a parking lot.
Tewari argued that the Rajya Sabha had stopped discharging its responsibility as envisioned by the Constitution many decades ago.
He also called for a serious deliberation on whether the Rajya Sabha should be abolished in the present scenario.
“In my personal opinion, the Rajya Sabha has stopped carrying out the functions for which it was constituted. The Rajya Sabha has now become a parking lot. It needs to be examined whether or not the country needs Rajya Sabha now,” news agency ANI quoted Tewari as saying.
Randeep Singh Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari have been made candidates from Rajasthan. All these three candidates do not belong to Rajasthan. Congress MLA from Sirohi in Rajasthan, Sanyam Lodha has raised the question and said that the party will have to explain why no one was nominated from Rajasthan.
Pawan Kheda, who hails from Rajasthan, was a contender for Rajya Sabha in Congress. But his name is also not included in the list. After the release of the list, he tweeted, “Maybe there is something missing in my penance.”
