Pilot named Congress's Rajasthan chief

Union minister Sachin Pilot was Monday appointed chief of the Congress's Rajasthan unit, a party statement said.

"Congress president Sonia Gandhi has appointed Sachin Pilot as president of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) with immediate effect," the statement said.

He is likely to take charge on Jan 21, party sources in Jaipur said Monday.

The 36-year-old Pilot is corporate affairs minister and a close associate of party vice president Rahul Gandhi. He replaces Chandrabhan, who was defeated in the assembly polls.

His appointment as PCC chief comes a month after the party's humiliating defeat to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan, where it could only secure 21 out of the 200 assembly seats.

"His task is to mobilize workers ahead of the general elections scheduled to take place later this year," said a state Congress leader.

The son of late party leader and union minister Rajesh Pilot, Pilot, currently the MP from Ajmer, has been given the job just a few months before the Lok Sabha elections.

Pilot's ancestral village is Vaidpura in Noida and he belongs to the Bidhuri clan of Gurjar community. He is an MBA from Wharton Business School in the US.