Bickering within the UP unit of Congress party continued to hog limelight when a senior leader lodged an FIR perceiving threat to his life from state party chief Ajay Kumar Lallu on Friday.
Senior Congress leader and former secretary Sunil Rai filed a case against Lallu and told mediapersons in Lucknow that he has been receiving several international calls from unknown callers handing out life threats to him and dire consequences if he did not stop opposing Ajay Kumar Lallu.
“These callers have been threatening me not to say a word against Lallu,” he alleged.
Rai further said that he had filed an FIR against Lallu six months ago when the latter tore down a hoarding put up by him. “I had put up hoardings around the UPCC office on New Year. The hoardings carried photographs of Priyanka Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and some other leaders. Since Lallu’s picture was inadvertently left out, the UPCC chief got the hoarding pulled down and trampled upon them,” Rai said.
The FIR was lodged at Hussainganj police station under Sections 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), Section 427 (commit mischief and thereby causes loss or damage to the amount of fifty rupees or upwards) and Section 352 (Punishment for assault or criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation).
“However, the police, apparently under pressure from Lallu, did not initiate any action against him. I will now take up the matter at all possible levels,” he said.
Demanding security as there was imminent threat to his life, Rai said that he has also written to Congress interim national president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra recently urging them to remove Lallu from the state president post as he was working against party interests.
Alleging that the UPCC chief had an anti-upper caste mindset and did not allow leaders, other than those belonging to the OBC category, to actively work for the party, Rai claimed that several upper caste leaders were thrown out of the Congress in UP in the recent past.
The Congress leader claimed that if Lallu was not immediately removed, the party would be decimated in the state.
Meanwhile, a media report on Thursday said that UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and media chairman Nasimuddin Siddiqui had met Samajwadi party president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow recently, giving a new twist to the politics of Congress before the 2022 Assembly polls in the state. However, the Congress leaders contradicted the report and claimed it as false propaganda against them.