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Congress MLA and former Rajasthan minister Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya on Friday lamented the grand old party's 'plight' amid speculations of him joining the ruling BJP.
"You can see the plight of Congress across the country. The party is being hounded and rendered hollow from within by a select few people. Somewhere, it has drifted from the vision it had for the country and the people. It is not there anymore," Malviya told ANI on Friday. According to sources, Malviya is not 'happy' with the Congress leadership. Significantly, the former minister did not come to Jaipur for the filing of nomination papers by Sonia Gandhi, who is the Congress candidate from Rajasthan for the Rajya Sabha elections on February 14. Malviya currently represents the Bagidora Assembly seat in the Banswara district. As a tribal leader from southern Rajasthan where the BJP is considered to have a stronger footing than the Congress, his inclusion can assume significance before the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls in the state. Malviya first became an MLA in 2008, defeating the Janata Dal (United)'s Jeetmal Khant by 45,000 votes. In 2003, Khant got the better of Malviya by 6,000 votes. Despite strong anti-incumbency in 2013, which saw the Congress reduced to just 21 seats, Malviya retained his seat by defeating the BJP's Khemraj Garasiya. He prevailed over Garasiya again in 2018. In 2020, Malviya's name cropped up in an FIR filed in connection with the attempt to topple the Ashok Gehlot government that year by senior Congress leader and then-deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and his loyalist MLAs. The case pertained to purported audio clips, which were leaked during the political crisis that year. In one of the clips, a few people were purportedly heard saying that Malviya was with Pilot but later changed sides. (ANI)
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