New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday appointed Balsaheb Thorat (66), the Congress Legislature Party leader Balasaheb Thorat in Maharashtra, as the new state Congress president, replacing Ashok Chavan (60), a former chief minister, and replaced Thorat with Akkalkuma MLA advocate K C Padavi as the CLP leader.
An announcement by AICC general secretary KC Venugopal said that also appointed were five working presidents in the state: Dr Nitin Rahut, who was head of AICC farmers'' cell, Baswaraj M Patil, Vishwajeet Kadam, Yasho-mati Chandrakant Thakur and Muzaffer Hussain.
Thorat is known for the cooperative movement in Maharashtra and credited for the milk cooperative movement in the state. He was earlier also tipped to be the PCC chief when Chavan got the post. Rahul has started taking interest in the appointments he had earlier refused to make and this was once again reflected in Saturday''s announcement. He took the decision after noticing factionalism in the state unit when he called a meeting of the state leaders to discuss the upcoming Assembly elections in the state in October.
In a separate press release, Venugopal also announced constitution of various committees by Rahul for the Assembly elections.Former CM Prithviraj Chavan heads 28-member manifesto committee, another former CM and former union home minister heads 23-member coordination committee, Nana
Patole chairman of 61-member campaign committee''s chief, Ratnakar Mahajan chairman of publicity and publication committee of 22 members, former Maharashtra Minister Rajendra Darda which also includes journalist-turned party MP Kumar Ketkar as chairman of the 18-member media and communication committee, and Sharad Ranpise chairman of 5-member election management team with another five members on its sub-committee. Thorat heads the Pradesh election committee of 33 members as well as the 15-member strategy committee, with Ashok Chavan as co-chairman.
