In Uttar Pradesh, ahead of the assembly elections, an organisational overhaul has taken place in the Congress party. The Congress announced the formation of the Manifesto Committee, Outreach Committee, Membership Committee, Programme Implementation Committee, Training and Cadre Development Committee, Panchayat Raj Election Committee and Media and Communication Advisory Committee for its state unit.
Congress leaders such as Jitin Prasada and Raj Babbar, who were among the 23 signatories to a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi for a top-down reform of the organisation, have failed to find a place in the new committees formed for Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, those who denounced the dissenters, like Nirmal Khatri and Naseeb Pathan, have interestingly found places in the panels announced by Gandhi.
Prasada, an Uttar Pradesh leader and a Brahmin organiser, was under fire from the UP Congress unit, which called for disciplinary action against him after the letter. "Jitin Prasada is the only person from Uttar Pradesh to have signed the letter. His family history has been against the Gandhi family and his father the late Jitendra Prasad proved it by fighting elections against Sonia Gandhi. Despite this, Sonia Gandhi gave Jitin Prasada a Lok Sabha ticket and made him a minister. What he has done is gross indiscipline and the district congress committee wants strict action against him and condemns his actions," a resolution passed by a district Congress unit read.
Former UPPCC chief Khatri is in the Training and Cadre Development Committee, while Pathan is part of the Programme Implementation Committee. Both had denounced the letter writers and demanded action against them. Loyalists Salman Khurshid, P.L. Punia, Aradhana Misra, Supriya Shrinate, Vivek Bansal and Amitabh Dubey are all included in organisational posts.
Another 'letter' reaches Sonia Gandhi
At the same time, nine expelled Congress leaders have written to party president Sonia Gandhi, asking her to "rise above the affinity for the family [parivaar ke moh]" and run the organisation by establishing mutual trust and restoring the constitutional and democratic values. The letter from the UP veterans comes days after 23 senior Congress leaders wrote to Gandhi, saying uncertainty over the party leadership has "demoralised Congress workers". They also said over-centralisation and micro-management have always proven counter-productive.
In the letter dated September 2 and addressed to Gandhi, the nine Congress leaders, including former MP Santosh Singh and former minister Satyadev Tripathi, said Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi built the Congress and the country with democratic values. Singh and Tripathi were among the 10 senior leaders who were expelled from the primary membership of the Congress on November 24 last year for six years for allegedly tarnishing the party's image and opposing its leadership's decisions at public forums.
But it is ironical that for sometime, the way in which the party is being run, there is confusion and depression among the ordinary Congress worker, they added. "At a time when the country's democratic values and social fabric is lying scattered, the need of the country is that Congress remain alive, dynamic and strong. You please rise above the affinity for the family, and as per traditions, restore the expression of thoughts, constitutional and democratic values, and run the organisation by establishing communication and mutual trust," the leaders urged Gandhi.
"If you deviate from your responsibility, then Congress will become a thing of the past," they said. "Today, the Congress is facing uncertainty, indecisiveness, lack of communication, and lack of expression of thoughts, and is passing through a difficult phase of existential crisis." They also said the "height of insensitivity" can be gauged from the fact that the party president does not know about the incidents taking place in the organisation or is keeping the eyes shut "despite knowing everything".
-Inputs from PTI
