Mukul Wasnik

New Delhi, Nov. 8: Sushil Kumar Shinde?s sudden exit from Maharashtra politics might prompt Sonia Gandhi to send another of her general secretaries in the recently revamped All India Congress Committee to head a state unit.

After Salman Khursheed?s appointment last Saturday as Uttar Pradesh state unit president, the party chief is understood to be considering Mukul Wasnik, AICC general secretary for over three years now, as head of the Maharashtra Congress.

The leadership, sources said, has veered around to the view that incumbent Maharashtra unit president Prabha Rau, a Maratha from Vidarbha, would have to make way for a Dalit, as the new Democratic Front dispensation is packed with Maratha leaders.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, who has replaced Shinde ? a Dalit ? as chief minister, is a Maratha. So is R.R. Patil, the deputy chief minister from the Nationalist Congress Party. The newly elected Speaker of the Assembly, Babasaheb Kupekar, is also a Maratha.

?When Maratha leaders occupy all top positions in the government, we cannot afford to have a (state) party chief belonging to the same community. We have to have a non-Maratha to head the party?s state unit,? said a Union minister from Maharashtra.

Rau, who was made state Congress president just after the May Lok Sabha elections, is therefore on her way out, the sources said. Though Rau has married a non-Maratha, she is known as a Maratha leader.

The sources said Wasnik, a Dalit, is being considered a front-runner as his appointment could to some extent make up for Shinde losing out on the chief minister?s post after leading the Democratic Front back to power. Moreover, as governor of Andhra Pradesh, Shinde is out of active politics.

Wasnik hails from Vidarbha, which has no representation in the government?s higher echelons. ?As a young Dalit leader from the Vidarbha region, Wasnik ideally suits the current requirements of the party in the state,? said a senior Congress leader.

While Union minister of state for non-conventional energy sources Vilas Muttemwar is also being mentioned as a possible candidate, he is said to be reluctant to quit the ministry for a plunge into state politics.

The sources said the appointment of a new state unit chief would be high on Sonia?s Maharashtra agenda once Deshmukh?s ministry is formed.

The chief minister, who had set Tuesday as the deadline, arrived in the capital yesterday.

He held two rounds of consultations with Sonia today for finalising nominees for the 18 ministerial slots available to the party.