With infighting and failure of the Centre in attending the problems faced by common man already resulted into total rout for Congress in recent Assembly elections, in Uttar Pradesh, the things are not much different with over half a dozen senior leaders running their cadre separately.
The situation could be also gauged from the fact that while state president still not find an undisputed team to form his Committee even after completing more than one year in office, at the districts level too he was forced to appoint a working president along with a permanent one just to avoid open confrontation between the two factions. Earlier he had to get all the eight zonal heads appointed by Rahul Gandhi changed as he could not freely work to strengthen the Organisation as except for two all other zonal heads enjoys power in the Centre. However, even when Congress replaced all the zonal heads with loyalists of Khatri but still the scenario remained same.
Even after remaining away from power now for almost for last 25-years just due to infighting, Congress still remains a divided house with almost all senior leaders besides those made ministers or enjoying similar status operating separately reportedly to fulfill their own targets. After 2012 rout in Assembly electins, Nirmal Khatri was appointed as state president and empowered to strengthen the Organisation by the high command but the fact remained that there are various power centers in the State. The infighting between the state president and Congress legislative Party which is always evident in the past remains the same even when Rahul Gandhi soon after last
Assembly elections shunted out Pramod Tewari who remained ClP for over two decades. However, it made no difference as Pradeep Mathur, who was nominated new ClP never used Congress office even for Party activities and operates from his own office. Interestingly even for the same Party activities both Nirmal and Mathur hold press conferences separately and avoid to come on same platform. Mathur also not attend functions organized at Party office like on Monday when a programme was held to celebrate Party president Sonia Gandhi’s birthday ClP leader remained away.
Besides Khatri and Mathur, former state president Rita Bahuguna Joshi and former ClP Pramod Tewari were also actively running their separate offices in the State capital. Interestingly, some leaders closed to Khatri are unhappy with the State president as they felt that those who were rita’s loyalists are still enjoying key posts in the temporary committee of UPCC. Another power centre of the Congress is union minister for steel Beni Prasad Verma who not just actively operates his office from his residence and hold more press conference than Khatri but many times he openly came out on others senior leaders by claiming them as Rs agents’ of Samajwadi Party and holding them responsible for Congress debacle. He openly attacked another Party MP Pl Punia who too worked separately.
Former state president and MP Jagdambika Pal is another power centre in Congress who never lose chance to show his strength. Another key centre for Party activities is office of Union Coal minister Shree Prakash Jaiswal who remained active to maintain his supremacy in the Organisation. like Jaiswal, Union minister Salman Khursheed, Jitin Prasad, RPN Singh, Pradeep Jain Rs Aditya’ too were active in strengthening their own camps instead of joining hands with other leaders to re-built the Organisation so that drought for the Party in the biggest state of the country came to an end. Rahul Gandhi already followed several formulas to strengthen the Party but he failed to achieve his goal as his own senior party leaders were not ready to come under one umbrella in UP.