After complaints, Congress removes Digvijaya Singh as Telangana AICC in-charge

Accepting requests from senior Telangana Congress leaders, the Congress has relieved Digvijaya Singh as AICC in-charge of the state. R C Khuntia has been named Telangana in-charge while Satish Jarkiholi has been appointed AICC Secretary. “Congress president Sonia Gandhi has approved a new AICC team to look after the party affairs in Telangana,” said a statement from general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi. Several Telangana Congress leaders were learnt to be unhappy with Singh as he was not concentrating much on Telangana and mostly making his presence felt on social media by taking digs at the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his son K T Rama Rao. As in-charge of the party in the state, Congress leaders complained that Singh was unable to give them any direction and make the party a strong Opposition. The last straw seems to be negative reports to the high command after former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar’s visit to Sircilla on Monday, where Telangana Congress leaders could not put up a united front and the anti-government protest turned out to be a damp squib. Meira visited Sircilla to protest against the alleged thrashing by police of Dalits who allegedly torched vehicles during a protest against sand mining last month. One of the main complaints against Singh was that he was unable to stop the infighting and one-upmanship among Telangana Congress leaders. On April 21, Nalgonda district Congress leaders Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy and G Narayana Reddy pushed and abused each other in front of Singh, who was attending a meeting to review the party’s position in each district. Rajagopal Reddy is against TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, who is backed by local leader G Narayana Reddy. Singh did not react to the incident and many others in the Congress, which is split into several factions. Singh recently got into a spat with the CM’s son and Telangana minister K T Rama Rao on Twitter. “Influential friends of TRS heir-apparent were involved in Telangana drug racket,” Singh tweeted. KTR responded by saying that it was time for Singh to retire from politics as he had completely lost it. In April, the Congress replaced Singh as the general secretary in-charge of Karnataka and Goa, where the party failed to form the government despite being the single largest party.