Ending wait of more than two and half years, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Pritam Singh suspended the PCC with immediate effect on Tuesday. The spokesperson of the state Congress party, R P Raturi said that Pritam Singh has suspended the old PCC and new committee would soon be declared.
The important decision was taken by the PCC president after consultation with the central leadership of the party. During the recent Bharat Bachao rally held at national capital , Pritam Singh along with the leader of opposition (LoP) Indira Hridayesh and state in charge of the Congress party, Anugrah Narayan Singh met senior leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Ahmed Patel. It is learnt that Pritam Singh got the approval of central leaders for his new PCC.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pritam Singh was appointed as PCC chief in May 2017 after the severe drubbing the party faced at the hands of BJP in the assembly elections in the State. In these two and half years, Singh was not able to select his new team in the PCC and continued to work with the old PCC team that was chosen during the time when Kishore Upadhyaya was PCC President.
The two and half year old tenure of the PCC president so far has been a mixed bag. On one hand the Congress party performed reasonably well in the elections of urban local bodies held last year, the party was decimated in the Lok Sabha elections where all candidates of party including the PCC president lost elections by big margins. The performance of the party in the recent Panchayat elections too was not satisfactory.
While selecting the new team, the PCC president would have to keep in mind the regional and caste equations of the State. Apart from it would be interesting to note how he accommodates the supporters of the former chief minister and general secretary of All India Congress Committee (PCC) Harish Rawat in the new team.
It is an open secret that the Uttarakhand Congress is a sharply divided house with three major camps.
One camp is of the leaders owing allegiance to Harish Rawat while other major camp is of PCC president Pritam and LoP Indira Hridayesh. Third camp, though small in size is of supporters of former PCC president Kishore Upadhyaya.