After waiting for a week, the Uttar Pradesh Congress on Thursday issued show-cause notices to 11 senior Congress leaders, mostly former legislators and AICC members, for going against the party line and holding meeting to challenge the leadership.
The show-cause notices have been issued by the party’s disciplinary committee member and former MLA Ajai Rai. He has given 24 hours’ time to these rebel leaders to reply otherwise the party will take stern action taken against them.
In the notice, Rai has said that the act of these leaders has tarnished the party’s image and the party does not expect such acts by senior leaders.
The leaders who have been issued notices are former MP and AICC member Santosh Singh, ex-MLC and AICC member Siraj Mehndi, former state minister and AICC member Ram Krishna Dwivedi, former UP minister and AICC member Satyadeo Tripathi, AICC member Rajendra Singh Solanki, ex-MLA and AICC member Madhur Narain Mishra, former MLA and AICC member Hafiz Mohammad Umar, former MLA Vinod Choudhury, former MLA Nek Chandra Pandey, former Youth Congress president Saiyam Prakash Goswami and former Gorakhpur unit president Sanjeev Singh .
The action has been taken against these leaders as they held a meeting at the residence of Santosh Singh in Lucknow on November 14 and expressed concern over the manner in which the veterans were being sidelined in the party.
However, these leaders claimed that they had gathered to pay tributes to former prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on his birth anniversary and discuss ways to strengthen the party.
On Wednesday, the party had called all former legislators to a meeting at the UPCC office to discuss the party’s December 14 rally at New Delhi but these leaders refused to attend it.