Ajai Rai appointed as UP Congress chief, Surjewala in-charge of party in poll-bound MP

In yet another experiment in the crisis-torn Uttar Pradesh Congress, the AICC on Thursday appointed former MLA Ajai Rai as the new PCC president. The leadership also shuffled the charges of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh Congress, where AICC general secretary Randeep Surjewala was made the in-charge, while AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik was appointed as in-charge of Gujarat.

Ajai Rai, known as a local 'bahubali' of Varanasi, takes over as UP Congress president from Brijlal Khabri who ended up a non-starter ever since he got the post last year. If Khabri was a 'BSP export', Rai, who gained some spotlight by contesting as the Congress candidate against Narendra Modi from Varanasi in the 2014 LS polls (he also lost in the last assembly polls), also started his political innings from outside the Congress. With Ajay Kumar Lallu as PCC chief previously, this is the third UP PCC chief in a row from 'non-Congress origin' as many of the remaining traditional Congress leaders of the state, who had been tapped for the post, were reportedly unwilling to be shepherded by the 'non-Congress' political advisors of Rahul-Priyanka duo.

As AICC general secretary Randeep Surjewala, who was in-charge of Karnataka Congress during the party's triumphant assembly elections, gets the additional charge of MP, it also marked the third quick change in the post. If last year Wasnik was replaced by JP Aggarwal as AICC in-charge of MP, now the same Wasnik takes over as Gujarat in-charge from Raghu Sharma, who is due to contest the Rajasthan polls.