local Congress leaders have strongly reacted to All India Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and state president Raj Babbar’s move of not coming to the lucknow office during their short visit to the city on Thursday.
Both leaders visited lucknow to pay condolences to the family members of later Congress leader and former minister Dr Akhilesh Das Gupta on Wednesday. However, the duo did not care to call up local leaders who kept waiting for them at the state party headquarters.
“The party is already gasping for breath. But senior leaders dod not seem to be bothered due to their vested interests,” charged a senior Congress leader while demanding that the party brass should accept Raj Babbar’s resignation as he was not keen to shoulder the responsibility.
“During the recent poll, Babbar acted as if he was in-charge of the campaign committee. He hardly took a single decision as UPCC chief. He did not make any changes in the UPCC and continued with the his predecessor’s team,” said the agitated leader.
“Even after taking over as state chief, Babbar made it clear that he would holdd the post till elections. After the electoral debacle, he offered to resign.The Congress brass should remove Babbar and depute a full-time state president to revive the organization,”claimed a former Congress legislator.
The fomer MlA added, “In the midst of poll campaign, UP in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad had himself said that the organisation in UP was very weak and needed massive revamp. But he too did not deem it fit to visit the state office after condoling Dr Das’ death and chose to return to Delhi on Wednesday.”
As Azad and Babbar visted Dr Das’ family, senior leader Pramod Tewari accompanied them while scores of Congress leaders kept waiting in the UPCC office hoping that the duo would take out time to discuss various issues.
Sources claimed that some UPCC staff have not been getting salaries for the past few months and to duck a situation, the two leaders did not visit the UPCC office.
However on Saturday, the duo would chair two important meetings of district and city leaders in New Delhi and discuss reasons for the poll debacle with UP leaders in lucknow the next day.
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