Jaipur: Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Lokesh Sharma has denied that the CM met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi last Saturday in Delhi. His denial comes four days after the said meeting and the delay in denial has sparked speculations in political circles.
Sharma sent out three tweets on Wednesday late at night. "Some media houses running news related to the meeting Hon’ble CM and Shri Rahul Gandhi on 16th October due to ignorance or mischievous mentality.CM did not have any meeting with Rahul Gandhi Ji on 16th October," read the tweet. He also tweeted, "A meeting of AICC committee on Rajasthan had held at Rahul Ji's residence". In his third tweet, Sharma said, "The meeting was attended by Mr Ashok Gehlot, Mrs Priyanka Gandhi, Mr KC Venugopal, and Mr Ajay Maken. But some media organizations are running false news by spreading rumours about Rahul Ji's participation in this meeting. It is shameful to run such fabricated news by any reputed media organization."
It is to note that on October 16, Gehlot had attended the Congress Working Committee meeting held in New Delhi. Before leaving for Jaipur, he had been a part of the meeting held at Rahul Gandhi’s residence to discuss the issues of Rajasthan. Though no leader had talked about the meeting with the media but they did not deny Rahul's presence at the meeting till Wednesday night.
The denial comes after some media carried reports in a newspaper about the meeting and the so-called annoyance showed by Rahul towards Gehlot on issues related to Rajasthan. Commenting on the tweets Lokesh said "Looking at the kind of misinformation that was coming in, it became necessary to clarify the situation."
In the meantime, this denial after four days of the meeting has sparked a buzz in political circles. A senior party leader said that this denial means that Gehlot could neither meet Sonia nor Rahul personally. This has its political significance considering his political stature in the party and the ongoing crisis.
Political analyst Ashutosh Sharma said, "This denial after four days is leading to more confusion about the process of resolving the issues of the party in the state and it seems that the process that had started three months ago will take some more time to complete." He continued by saying that the committee mentioned in the denial was constituted to resolve the issues raised by Sachin Pilot, so the presence of Priyanka Gandhi in the meeting is politically very important.
