Sonia Gandhi appoints Prakash Mugdiya as Maharashtra state VP

Sonia Gandhi

On Friday, Interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi appointed Prakash Mugdiya as the party's vice president and Narayan Ambedkar and Rahul Dave as secretaries for Maharashtra Congress ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections. Gandhi also appointed district presidents for Ratnagiri, Vasai Virar city and Palghar.

In an official statement, party General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said, "Sonia Gandhi has approved the proposal for appointment of Mugdiya as state Vice President, Ambedkar, and Dave as Maharashtra Congress Committee secretaries." Venugopal further said that Sonia Gandhi has also approved appointments of Advocate Vijai Bhosle as the district chief of Ratnagiri, Onil Almeda as district president of Vasai Virar city and Divakar Patil as the district head of Palghar.

The appointments come keeping in mind the Maharashtra State Assembly elections. The Interim Congress president has also reversed the expulsion of former state minister Satish Chaturvedi last month. After being appointed as the appointed the interim party chief on August 10, Sonia Gandhi has taken a lot of organisational decisions.

In August, Gandhi constituted a screening committee with former Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia as its chairman and Harish Chaudhary and Manickam Tagore as the members of the committee. Gandhi also appointed Mallikarjun Kharge as the Congress General Secretary in-charge of the state, Balasaheb Tharot as the state unit chief and K.C. Padavi as the CLP leader, reports news agency IANS.

In the 2014 state elections in Maharashtra, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power by winning 122 seats in the 288 member Assembly. While BJP's ally Shiv Sena won 62 seats. The Congress and the NCP together managed to bag 42 and 41 seats only.

With inputs from IANS

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