Jyotiraditya Scindia appointed screening committee chairman for Maharashtra

BHOPAL: Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday was appointed the chairman of the screening committee for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections. The appointment comes a day before chief minister Kamal Nath is scheduled to meet AICC interim president Sonia Gandhi to discuss the next state Congress president for Madhya Pradesh.
Sources in the party said, that Sonia Gandhi has given time to chief minister Nath not only to discuss the appointment of next state Congress president but also party affairs.This is the first time that she will discuss Madhya Pradesh matters after the return of Congress to power in the state after 15 years.
Scindia had resigned from the post of AICC general secretary on July 7 when many senior leaders had submitted their resignation taking collective responsibility for the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha. Before the Lok Sabha elections, Scindia was made in-charge of western Uttar Pradesh where the Congress lost all seats. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was in-charge of eastern UP.
The senior leader himself lost the Guna Parliamentary constituency, which he represented since 2002, by a margin of 1,25,549 votes against BJP’s KP Yadav.
But despite his electoral loss, AICC interim president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday appointed him chairman of the screening committee for Maharashtra. The other members of the committee are Harish Choudhary and Manickam Tagore. Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge is in-charge of party affairs in Maharashtra.