Balasaheb Thorat is new Maharashtra Congress chief

Outgoing Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday approved the appointment of Balasaheb Thorat as Maharashtra Congress president few days after Ashok Chavan resigned from the post.

In a series of approvals on Friday, Gandhi also named KC Padavi as the new Congress Legislature Party Leader in Maharashtra Assembly. Padavi succeeds R Vikhe Patil, who defected to the BJP recently.

Congress also named five working presidents with Thorat, besides forming election committees in poll bound Maharashtra.

The five working presidents are Nitin Raut, Baswaraj Patil, Vishwajeet Kadam, Yashomati Thakur and Muzaffar Hussein.

Raut last week put in his papers as AICC Scheduled Caste cell Chairman.

The Maharashtra Strategy Committee formed on Friday will be headed by Thorat and co chairmen will be Ashok Chavan and Harshvardhan Patil. This 15-member committee will have among members Prithviraj Chavan, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Milind Deora and Nana Patole. Former Mumbai Congress Chief Sanjay Nirupam hasn’t found a place in this panel.

The Maharashtra Congress manifesto panel will be chaired by Prithviraj Chavan and co-convened by Balachandran Mungekar.

Former home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde will head the coordination committee of Maharashtra polls, and Thorat will chair the 33-member state election committee. Sanjay Nirupam has been named in this panel and also in campaign committee.

Former AICC farmer cell chairman Nana Patole gets to head the all important Maharashtra campaign committee of 61 members.

A publicity committee has also been formed.

The orders came in the name of Congress president and under the signatures of AICC general secretary organisation KC Venugopal.