The infighting in Chhattisgarh Congress over power sharing between Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Health Minister T.S. Singh Deo got physical on Sunday when a supporter of the latter was heckled and pushed around on the stage at a party event in Jashpur even as he was speaking.
Prominent among those who heckled and also reportedly slapped Pawan Agrawal, former district chief of Jashpur Congress, was the district minority cell chief of the party, Iftekhar Hasan, sources said. Hasan is said to be a key supporter of Kunkuri MLA U.D. Minj, who was part of the team of legislators who were camping in New Delhi in support of chief minister Baghel earlier this month.
The incident happened in the presence of Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, MP and All India Congress Committee secretary. Ulaka is on a week-long tour to the state and was participating in a Congress workers’ convention in Jashpur on Sunday when the incident occurred.
A video of the incident, where a man, purportedly Hasan is seen taking away the mike from Agrawal and then pushing him around even as the others, including cops on security duty, jump on to the dais has gone viral.
The Chhattisgarh BJP also shared the clip on Twitter to take a jibe and said the Congress culture was to the fore as scuffle, assault occurred on a public forum. “The tussle for the chair has reached the level of physical scuffle. When a leader reminded the promise of Rahul Gandhi about 2.5 years power sharing formula, he was beaten up right on the dais,” Chhattisgarh BJP handle tweeted.
According to sources, Pawan Agrawal, who is also a member of the state board of secondary education was referring to the contribution of Singh Deo to the victory of the Congress in 2018 assembly polls. He then went on to say that party workers work hard so that they are listened to when the government is formed. Agrawal was yet to complete his speech when Hasan suddenly interrupted and took away his mike, pushing him away from the podium. Many others joined on the dais and Agrawal was reportedly hit in the process, though it is not evident on the video.
Agrawal later alleged to a section of media that he was assaulted at the behest of MLA U.D. Minj.
The chief spokesman of the Chhattisgarh Congress, Sushil Anand Shukla, however, sought to play down the incident, saying as per his information, an argument broke out between Agrawal and the organisers of the programme over the length of the former’s speech. “Everyone was allocated two minutes of time to speak due to shortage of time, but Agrawal wanted to speak for longer, leading to an argument. There was nothing more to it,” Shukla said.