Maharashtra Congress leaders come out against Imran Pratapgarhi

There is a growing discontent within the Maharashtra unit of Congress over the leadership's decision to field Imran Pratapgarhi for a Rajya Sabha seat from the state.

Pratapgarhi, a poet and chairman of the AICC's minority department, belongs to UP.

On Tuesday, Maharashtra Congress general secretary Ashish Deshmukh quit from the post in protest against the high command decision to field an outsider from the state.


"I resigned from the post as the party has done an injustice. We are going to have local body polls and if a candidate from Maharashtra would have been given a ticket, then our organisation would have been strengthened. Instead, they have given it to a man who is from UP and his qualification is that he is a qawwal and does mushaira and shairi," Deshmukh told ET.

Other leaders like former CM Prithviraj Chavan have also publicly indicated that they were not in sync with the Congress top brass on the issue.