Congress Dissenters Left Out Of Key UP Panels, Sonia Gandhi Gets Yet Another Letter

A few weeks after a letter that put the spotlight on the fissures in the already crumbling Congress party, now reports suggest that leaders who signed that letter of dissent have been left out of a key Uttar Pradesh panels that will prepare for state elections in the next two years. 

NDTV reported that Congress leader Salman Khurshid will lead the team, which also includes Nirmal Khatri and Naseeb Pathan, that will decide on the Congress manifesto. Both Khatri and Pathan had opposed the “dissenters” who had written to Sonia Gandhi. 

Congress leaders like Jitin Prasada and Raj Babbar, who had signed the letter were left out of the panels. 

While the party failed miserably in 2017, winning only seven seats in the 403 Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Priyanka Gandhi was made the party general secretary and in-charge of Uttar Pradesh in a bid to make things better. 

The Indian Express reported that the Congress set up seven committees that will look art the party’x outreach, panchayat polls, cadre development, and media and communication, among other things. 

This move is being seen as a clear message to those who had written the letter questioning the manner in which the party was functioning. 

PTI reported that the panels announced are 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 Uttar Pradesh unit.

While Salman Khurshid, PL Punia, Aradhana Misra, Supriya Shrinate, Vivek Bansal and Amitabh Dubey are in the Manifesto Committee, those in the Outreach Committee include Pramod Tiwari, Pradip Jain, Gajraj Singh, Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Imran Masood and Bal Kumar Patel, PTI reported. 

Those in the Membership Committee are Anugrah Narayan Singh, Ajay Kapoor, BL Khabri, Mohd Muqeem, former MP Kamal Kishore “Commando” and former Varanasi MLA Ajay Rai.

The Media and Communication Advisory Committee has Rashid Alvi, Lalitesh Pati Tripathi, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, Surendra Rajput, Omkar Singh and Virendra Madan.

The UPPCC president and the CLP leader will be ex-officio members of all the committees, an official communication from the party said.

The letter was signed by several prominent Congress leaders like Shashi Tharoor, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, PJ Kurian, Renuka Chaudhary, Milind Deora, Ajay Singh and many others. It called for a “full time” leadership that is active in the field and “visible” in party offices, dissolution of powers to state units and revamping the CWC in line with the party constitution.

In an AICC workers committee meeting Sonia Gandhi had asked the leaders of the party to begin the process of finding a new president. 

New letter to Sonia

The announcement of the UP panels also comes on a day when yet another letter was sent to Sonia Gandhi, written by nine expelled UP Congress leaders, asking to to “rise above the affinity for the family”. 

PTI reported that the letter was dated September 2 and was written by nine Congress leaders, including former MP Santosh Singh and former minister Satyadev Tripathi. 

The letter highlighted the need for the Congress to remain alive at present. 

NDTV quoted the letter as saying, “Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi built the Congress and the country with democratic values. But it is ironical that, for some time the way in which the party is being run, there is confusion and depression among ordinary party workers... 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.”  

The letter pointed to a lack of communication and “expression of thoughts”. 

PTI quoted the letter as saying, “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”.

Referring to their expulsion, the leaders said in the letter, “It is almost one year (since expulsion), but despite requests we were not given time by the (state unit of the) party. The party’s central disciplinary committee is also not listening to anything. It seems the Congress office is locked.”

(With PTI inputs)