The Congress high command on Monday nominated the party’s former MP and AICC general secretary Rajani Patil as its candidate for the by-election to the one Rajya Sabha seat scheduled for October 4, after ignoring the claims of several Congress leaders.
The by-election to one RS seat from Maharashtra has been necessitated by the untimely demise of sitting Congress member Rajeev Satav who died because of Covid-19 complications on May 16 this year."The Congress President Smt Sonia Gandhi has approved the candidature of Smt. Rajani Patil as the party candidate for the ensuing bye-election to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra," Mukul Wasnik, general secretary in-charge of Congress' Central Election Committee (CEC), said in an official statement on Monday.
The Congress high command has chosen Rajani Patil, who is a Gandhi-Nehru family loyalist, as the party candidate for the RS by-polls, ahead of Rajeev’s widow Pradnya Satav, who had lobbied with the party leadership for nomination, veteran party leader Sushilkumar Shinde, party general secretary Mukul Wasnik himself, former Rajasthan state in charge Avinash Pande, former MP Rajiv Shukla and former union minister Milind Deora.
Sixty-two-year Rajanitai – as she is known in the state political circles -- is currently the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir. She was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha in 2013. In 1996, Patil had won the Beed Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra for the Congress.
She had replaced AICC general secretary and former Maharashtra chief minister Shushil Kumar Shinde as the in-charge for Himachal in September, 2018 Patil enjoys close rapport with the Gandhi family, especially party president Sonia Gandhi.
Informed party sources said that Rajanitai was to have been nominated as the party candidate for Rajya Sabha polls from Maharashtra in 2020. She was reportedly the choice of Sonia Gandhi herself. However, Rahul Gandhi had rooted for Rajeev Satav and Rajeev had his way.
There was a talk that Rajanitai would not be nominated to the State Legislative Council from the Governor. However the nominations have not happened as Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has been sitting over the list of 12 persons recommended by the Maharashtra government for nomination as the MLCs.
With her nomination to the State Legislative Council not coming through, the Congress high command has nominated Rajanitai as the party’s candidate for the RS by-elections scheduled for October 4.
Pradnya, widow of late Satav who was close to former party president Rahul Gandhi, had been lobbying with the party leadership for the RS nomination in place of her husband.
Two things that went against her was that she is new to politics and she had posted a private message from a party president on social media, a thing that the Congress leadership did not take kindly to.
Sources said that the party may compensate Pradnya, who has now been appointed as vice president of the Maharashtra State Congress Committee (MPCC), by sending her to the State Legislative Council in the near future.