Hyderabad: The Indian Youth Congress has suspended more than 200 office-bearers across seven states for allegedly failing to attend the INDIA bloc rally against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan on November 1, according to media organisations.
The latest suspensions come after the organisation began reviewing the participation of its functionaries in the opposition rally. The youth wing had earlier suspended more than 80 office-bearers and sought explanations from them for their absence, NDTV reported on Wednesday.
Citing sources, NDTV reported that the number of suspended functionaries could reach 500 as the disciplinary exercise progresses.
The first round of action covered office-bearers in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Around 60 functionaries from Madhya Pradesh, at least 13 from Himachal Pradesh and around 10 from Haryana were suspended.
Before the rally, the IYC had directed all its office-bearers at the national, state and district levels to attend the programme without exemptions, according to the report.
The IYC had introduced a digital system to record the participation of its office-bearers and workers. Barcode scanners were placed at the Minto Road assembly point, where participants were required to mark their attendance using the organisation's official app, 'With IYC'.
The youth wing claimed that around 15,000 people had gathered at Minto Road before Rahul Gandhi's march towards Ramlila Maidan. However, the app recorded only 2,831 registrations.
The IYC leadership initiated an internal review after the November 1 rally to assess the attendance of its functionaries. (with inputs from media organisations)