Khuntia replaces Diggy as party Telangana watcher

​Hyderabad: The All India Congress Committee on Tuesday divested its General Secretary Digvijay Singh of his responsibilities as the person in charge of party affairs in Telangana, and assigned the job to RC Khuntia, who will be assisted by AICC secretary Satish Jarkiholi.

The change of guard has evoked a mixed bag of reactions from State Congress leaders. While some senior leaders are of the view that it would help the party in charting a new direction and becoming “more aggressive”; another section says that the new general secretary in charge of the state party has an uphill task.

They point out that Khuntia, who was supposed to assist Digvijay Singh in the past, had never played an active role, though his attention was drawn to several issues pertaining to the State unit. The result was that things did not improve.

Kuntia, they aver, used to just come to the Telangana state time and again en route to his native place --Odisha.

Another section of Congress leaders said that this change could be a precursor to other upcoming changes in the state Congress unit so that the party could be strengthened from the grassroots level to effectively face the 2019 elections.

Expressing their happiness at the replacement of Digvijay Singh, some state Congress leaders said that the party’s senior leaders had complained to the high command about the general secretary’s style of functioning.

The party, which had suffered a major debacle during the last election, could not regain the lost ground in the last three years.