Gurudas Kamat Meets Congress Leaders Ahmed Patel And AK Antony

New Delhi: As Congress seeks to mollify him after his resignation from the party, Gurudas Kamat today had separate meetings with senior Congress leaders AK Antony and Ahmed Patel but declined to spell out his plans.

The meetings took place at Mr Patel's residence in New Delhi where several leaders had come to condole the death of his daughter-in-law Zainab Neduo.

Mr Kamat also had a meeting with Mr Patel, who is political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, last night.

However, both Mr Anthony and Mr Kamat declined to comment on their meeting.

Asked whether he was taking back his resignation, Mr Kamat said "no comments". When further probed on whether he would meet the Congress president, he said that would happen "in due course".

On June 6, the 61-year-old Congress general secretary had announced that he was quitting active politics and resigning from the party.

Mr Kamat had said that he has the "highest respect and regard" for Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi and "my resignation is purely on personal grounds".

Mr Kamat, who had been Mumbai PCC chief for a long time, was reportedly unhappy over the appointment of his known detractor Sanjay Nirupam as the head of the city unit of the party.

The move had come ahead of next year's Mumbai civic elections, where Congress is hoping to dislodge the incumbent Shiv Sena-BJP combine.

Seeking to dispel the notion that he was upset over party electing P Chidambaram to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra and former chief minister Narayan Rane to Legislative Council, Mr Kamat said he had no issues with them and he had worked under the senior Congress leader in the Home Ministry.

Meanwhile, former Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde expressed confidence that the leadership would resolve the issue by addressing the grievances of Mr Kamat.

Mr Shinde had meetings with the Congress president and Mr Gandhi over the last two days.