Ashok Chavan latest blow, unease grows in Congress over BJP’s blitz, Rahul Yatra timing

As the Lok Sabha elections draw near, the challenges before the Congress and the INDIA bloc are mounting. The latest setback came Monday, with senior Maharashtra leader Ashok Chavan leaving the party – coming on the heels of the JD(U) and RLD walking out of the INDIA coalition, the Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announcing that they would go it alone in West Bengal and Punjab; and seat-sharing talks in Delhi coming under severe strain.

Chavan has become the ninth former chief minister of the Congress to leave the party in the past 10 years, joining the ranks of Amarinder Singh (Punjab), Ghulam Nabi Azad (Jammu and Kashmir), Vijay Bahuguna (Uttarakhand), the late Ajit Jogi (Chhattisgarh), S M Krishna (Karnataka), Narayan Rane (Maharashtra) and Giridhar Gamang (Odisha). (Gamang returned to the party recently.)

Chavan’s resignation had been coming for a while, as he was known to be sulking. What many in the Congress expressed surprise over was the lack of efforts on the part of the high command to placate him. Sources said that at least a month ago, AICC in-charge of Maharashtra Ramesh Chennithala flagged to the leadership that some leaders against whom there are cases were “facing pressure” to quit, and that the activities of such leaders should be monitored.

On Monday, as Chavan exited the party, the Congress chose to lay the blame on his and the BJP’s doors, suggesting that the cases against him were the motivating factor.

But, behind the scenes, the party is bracing for more trouble, with apprehension rife that some MLAs close to the ex-CM (sources put their number at half-a-dozen) could quit and potentially spoil the Congress’s chances of winning a Rajya Sabha seat from the state in elections later this