Soon after the Congress’s humiliating defeat in four State Assembly polls, the party Vice President Rahul Gandhi had vouched that his party would now do something, which “no one has ever imagined”. But the pledge will eventually fall flat if he has a look at the recently-notified list of AICC members from Bihar and State office bearers.
The list notified by the party general secretary nearly a month ago has several leaders with doubtful characters and dubious political credentials.
The Congress in Bihar has been in deep political slumber since a long time for inter and intra-party conflict between the State leaders having support of their own set of lobby in Delhi. Even Vice President Rahul Gandhi had failed to correct its political course during the 2009 lS polls and the party had by far the most humiliating performance with win on just two seats. The Congress is running without party presidents in a total of six districts of the State for the last two years. The Bihar PCC has been bogged down with leaders fighting against each other since on the basis of caste, community and their own political godfathers sitting in Delhi.
Recently on December 21 last year, the Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi revamped its State AICC and office bearers with leaders not even elected in the Pradesh Congress Committee.
A glance at the party’s AICC leaders’ list from Bihar revealed that it has even violated party’s constitution which said all members of the Pradesh Congress Committee shall be delegates to the Indian National Congress and there should be reservation for women SC/ ST/OBC and minorities. Interestingly, out of 74 notified AICC members, only 12 are women.
But, significantly, in the list of total 74 out of 80 seats for AICC members from Bihar, a total of 11 members are not elected delegates whereas three of them are tainted. The name of Amlendu Pandey had earlier cropped in nationally-highlighted Hasan Ali false passport case and a number of criminal cases are pending against Samim Akhtar in Bettiah civil court. Another member Sunita Devi’s name had come up when a sex scandal had hit headlines with her own bodyguard Bal Yogeshwar Sharma of Katihar Police.
Similarly, Manoj Kumar Singh and Sidhnath Rai had defected RJD and JD-U to join the Congress in 2010 and 2013 respectively. They have been known for their anti-Congress faces in the State, said a State Congress leader.
Another member Tara Nand Sada was even suspended from the Congress party in 2011 for six years and other members like Brajesh Kumar Munnan, Shailesh Singh and Kiran Devi are not elected PCC delegates.
The Pioneer has learnt that several senior State party leaders have also written to the party high command. “We have asked for legal actions and immediate overhaul of the committees and the AICC list”, said one of them.