The infighting within the Congress, particularly between the old guards and those who defected to it from other parties, particularly Bahujan Samaj Party, led to the disqualification of the party’s official candidate for Mathura mayoral polls, Raj Kumar Rawat, and now he has to fight as an `Independent’.

Former BSP MLA Rawat, who defected to the Congress recently, will now have to enter the poll fray as an independent, officials said. Interestingly the party old guard Shyam Sundar Upadhyay was declared as the official Congress candidate for the Mathura mayoral poll. Upadhyay, however, too had to taste the music of infighting in the party as soon after filing of his nomination, the party’s state disciplinary committee head Shyam Kishore Shukla served him a notice asking him to immediately withdraw his papers. Shukla also questioned him from where he got the letter making him an authorised candidate of the party.

While Upadhyay did not reply to the notice and Shukla was also waiting for the same, in another surprise move, Tariq Anwar, all India general secretary of the party, expelled Upadhyay from the primary membership of the party for six years.

It may be mentioned that while issuing notice to Upadhyay, Shyam Kishore Shukla had termed the letter recognizing him as party candidate as ‘forged’. 

Additional District Magistrate and election officer for the mayoral poll in Mathura, Vijai Shankar Dubey, however said that Uttar Pradesh Congress president Brijlal Khabri had issued Form 7A in favour of both Upadhyay and Rawat but he had neither cancelled nor withdrawn the form against anyone within the stipulated time. According to the laws governing the polls, the candidate filing his nomination papers first is considered as the official nominee of any party when more than one contestant has been given Form 7A, Dubey added.

He said that thus Upadhyay was declared the official candidate of the Congress as he had filed his nomination papers first and now the other aspirant, Raj Kumar Rawat, would contest the election, scheduled to be held on May 4, as an Independent candidate.

The party officially claiming any letter as `forged’ is not new. Earlier, a list of candidates for the post of corporator in Lucknow went viral. After more than 24 hours, Khabri termed the list as `fake’ and constituted a committee to look into the matter. He also directed the poll committee to review each and every name before deciding the candidature for the corporator's post.

A former MLA of the party told `The Pioneer’ on condition of anonymity that as Khabri came from Bahujan Samaj Party and majority of zonal presidents like Nakul Dubey, Naseemudin Siddiqui, were also from BSP, they were sidelining the party old guards and bringing in BSP leaders into the party fold and giving them Congress tickets.

He also gave examples of fielding Sangeeta Jaiswal for mayoral election in Lucknow, Raj Kumar Rawat for mayoral election in Mathura, or Lata Kumari for mayoral election in Agra.