Dissidence in UP congress doubles

Two days after factionalism and bickering over ticket distribution that nearly marred Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s five-day road show in UP, the state Congress has to crack a whip against the dissidence to control the situation.

The situation in congress is so bad that Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi had to wait for more than two hours to start his prestigious rally in Bahraich. District party chief Jitendra Singh ‘Jitu’ and city chief Sheikh Zacharia Sheikhu were sacked for obstructing Rahul’s convoy demanding tickets. One Shiv Shankar Shukla had lodged an FIR against Union minister Beni Prasad Verma for threatening to kill him since he also contended for party ticket. Shiv Shankar is also removed from congress membership.

Chief spokesperson of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) Subodh Srivastava, who was a strong contender for the Lucknow Central seat and was considered a close aide of UPCC President Rita Bahuguna Joshi, resigned after being denied ticket. The Congress preferred to give the ticket to Faquir Siddiqui, who had recently joined the party after being expelled from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for anti-party activities.

Srivastava’s resignation is not the lone incident of dissidence in the party. Just before Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Phulpur this week, about 304 party workers resigned demanding change of candidate in the Pratappur constituency. Even when the second list of candidates was declared, there was enough dissent in the party over tickets being given to outsiders. There were about 30 outsiders in the second list. “Congress party has turned into a private corporation; it only cares about its profits without taking into consideration loyalists,” alleged a senior state Congress leader.
 
Clearly Rahul is unable to contain any dissidence in party and his program managers are not able to atract any crowd to his speeches. Is he the leader whom some of the congress leaders project to lead this Country?