National Congress Leaders, Rajasthan Party Chief To Meet On Friday

Amid a renewed challenge from Sachin Pilot to the Congress top brass, Rajasthan in-charge at the AICC Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has called a meeting of his three co-incharges and the PCC chief in Delhi on Friday, party sources said.

The meeting called by Mr Randhawa will be attended by Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasara, co-incharges Qazi Muhammad Nizamuddin, Amrita Dhawan and Virendra Rathore.

Mr Dotasra confirmed the meeting and said it will be held to strengthen the Congress in the election year and discuss all the issues related to Rajasthan. The meeting is expected to discuss the challenge thrown by Mr Pilot's "Jan Sangharsh Yatra".

Mr Pilot launched a 125-km foot march from Ajmer to Jaipur on Thursday to raise the issue of corruption and cases of paper leaks in government recruitment exams.

He said his march is not against anyone but over issues. He also repeated that he had been writing to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for a year and a half for action over corruption, but none has been taken.

The five-day yatra mounts pressure on the party leadership months ahead of the assembly elections.

A month ago, the former deputy chief minister defied a warning from the party to hold a daylong fast targeting Mr Gehlot on "inaction" over alleged corruption when the BJP was previously in power.

Mr Pilot and Mr Gehlot has been engaged in a bitter tussle for power in the state Congress unit and in government.

One of the Sachin Pilot-camp MLAs, Ved Prakash Solanki, has written to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former president Rahul Gandhi, saying Mr Randhawa has failed to establish coordination in the party's state unit.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)