Declare CM candidate for Rajasthan polls: Congress MLA Vishvendra Singh

ALWAR/JAIPUR: Even as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi cleared that assembly elections in Rajasthan would be contested under ‘collective leadership’, party’s Deeg-Kumher legislator Vishvendra Singh has demanded that a chief ministerial candidate be declared. Singh was speaking to reporters in Bharatpur on Tuesday.
The legislator, who is known for throwing up controversies time and again, went on to caution Congress central leadership against ‘dreaming’ about returning to power in the state without declaring the chief ministerial candidate.Last year, Singh stirred Congress state politics by asking Congressmen in a meeting to raise hands in support of PCC chief Sachin Pilot for the chief minister’s post. Pilot and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot were present in the meeting held at PCC headquarters then.
On Tuesday, Singh advised his party high command to repeat in Rajasthan the strategy it followed in Punjab assembly elections where Amarinder Singh was declared the CM candidate. “If Congress continues to function in a state of confusion, it will not be able to come to power (in Rajasthan),” Singh said. “At present the situation here is in favour of Congress. But I believe it will be difficult (to win election) unless we project the chief minister’s face; any one face—there is no dearth of leaders, experienced or young,” the Congress legislator said. “If we can give a face in Punjab, what is the difficulty in Rajasthan,” he added.
Exactly eight days back, the same point was raised by another legislator when Rahul Gandhi was holding a meeting with Rajasthan’s Congress MLAs in New Delhi. The Congress vice-president then explicitly replied that assembly elections in 2018 would be fought under the state’s collective leadership, in keeping with the party’s policy so far.
Singh was the only Congress MLA who was absent in the meeting held on May 16. “These days just meetings are being held one after another; there is repetition (of things said),” the Congress legislator said.
AICC general secretary in-charge Avinash Pande, who has been holding meetings with party functionaries in Jaipur since Monday, rubbished Singh’s demand and reiterated that elections would be held under the collective leadership. Pande on Tuesday distributed responsibilities to the four newly appointed AICC secretaries in-charge of the state.
PCC chief Pilot, on the other hand, addressed a farmers’ rally near Mehandipur Balaji in Dausa district on Tuesday. “Farmers have suffered the most under the present BJP governments in Centre and state,” Pilot said, while narrating the alleged anti-farmer policies of BJP.