Allegations of Union Minister for Steel, Beni Prasad Verma that Rahul Gandhi’s move of giving tickets in 15 Parliament seats including two in UP through voting is more of a ‘auction’ then a democratic exercise, have been further buttressed by the fact that Onkar Singh, who was made in-charge to complete the exercise, have been called back to lucknow just on the eve of polling in one of the constituency.
Interestingly not a single nominee from the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee was present during the voting which took place in Sant Kabir Nagar on Wednesday. In Ambedkarnagar also, charges of irregularities have been made after which the observers sent a report to the Centre. “Onkar Singh was just entrusted to complete the voter list and made scrutiny of candidates who filed their nominations”, clarified chairman of the UPCC media committee, Satyadev Tripathi.
“Onkar returned to UPCC headquarters on Tuesday evening as Shree Prakash Joshi, the central observer has been entrusted to complete the voting exercise and declared that how many votes each candidates scored”, claimed Tripathi while saying that they will send the final result to All India Congress Committee who would finally declared the candidate.
Interestingly, Tripathi refused to react that the move to withdraw Onkar Singh has anything to do with Beni’s allegations. “The Minister who made remarks of auction is a senior leader of the party and I do not want to make any comment on his remarks”, replied Tripathi while denying to react on Beni’s comment. However, sources said that soon after Beni’s allegations, Rahul decided to keep UPCC away from the exercise and get the process completed just under the Central observer so that no one could able to do any foul play.
In Ambedkarnagar also, nominations of two candidates have been cancelled as they not had support of required ten members while two more candidates, who both were close to UPCC chief had clashed with each other. While one accused the other who is a Mumbai based businessman that he was never in the Congress, the other replied that he too concealed the information that he is facing trial in two attempt to murder cases.
Interestingly, if the above four candidates has been kept aside, only one candidate remained in the fray hence the Central observer reportedly sent a report to AICC seeking direction that whether they should go ahead with the exercise amidst so much controversy. It may be also mentioned here that alleging irregularities in voters list, a Youth Congress leader also sat on dharna in Ambedkarnagar on Wednesday.
Rs Rs We are saying from the day one that UPCC was not making a fair exercise to chose a Congress leader through democratic exercise”, alleged a senior leader close to Beni Prasad citing that initially 1200 voters were included in the list in Sant Kabir Nagar which mostly comprises of non-congress activists. Rs Rs When we raised objection, Onkar Singh, who is incharge get about 500 names removed from the list which clearly pointed that how the plan has been made to auction the ticket”, Congress leader alleged. He said that even in Ambedkarnagar, the voting for which is to take place on March 3, lot of irregularities have been made in preparing the voters list. Rs Rs A majority of non-congress leaders have been included in the list just to use money power and get their support to became Congress candidate in the coming Parliament elections”, the leader further alleged demanding the high-command to immediately cancel the whole process and select some senior Congress leader after looking the Rs winnabilty’ factor.
Meanwhile UPCC media chairman, Satyadev Tripathi, claimed to have urged to the Election Commission to ensure deployment of Central Forces in all the booths alleging misuse of machinery by the state government. Rs Rs State government already made a massive transfer and posted officer who could help Samajwadi Party candidate to win the elections”, alleged Tripathi while informing that the Party wrote a letter in this regard to Election Commission and demanded deployment of Central forces in all the booths. He also criticised the government for not allocating the portfolios to new ministers who have been inducted in Akhilesh Yadav’s cabinet recently.