Nearly two years after it sacked him from his post as the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) chief, the Sonia Gandhi-led party on Friday rehabilitated Sanjay Nirupam and appointed him as one of the three additional Maharashtra Parliamentary board members.
Nirupam — who had been removed as the MRCC president and replaced with former MP Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist Milind Deora on March 25, 2019 in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls — was virtually in the doghouse before the Congress decided to bring him in a party post.
A sulking Nirupam had not campaigned for the party during the 2019 LS and the subsequent Assembly elections. One of the reasons for bringing him back as an active party function is to utilise his popularity among the north-Indian voters in the run-up to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls. Nirupam is one of the MPCC’s three additional Parliamentary board members, while the other two are senior city party leaders Eknath Gaikwad and Janardhan Chandurkar.
In addition, the Congress appointed Nana Gavande, Sachin Naik, Sanjay Rathod and Charulatha Tokas and MPCC’s four new Vice-Presidents.
The MPCC re-jig comes three weeks after Congress president Sonia Gandhi appointed former Speaker Nana Patole in place of State Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat.
