Uttar Pradesh Congress, already facing criticism for expelling 10 senior party leaders recently, has now tried to show impartiality in its action by serving second notice to party MLA Aditi Singh and also moving a petition in the UP Assembly for her disqualification.
The Congress has served the second notice on Aditi, who got married to Punjab legislator Angad Saini last week, after she refused to reply to the first notice served in the first week of October. The notice was served to her after she attended the special session of UP Assembly on October 2 on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi even after party’s boycott call.
However, in order to show impartiality after the party expelled 10 senior Congressmen, who challenged Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, party leader in the assembly Aradhna Mishra Mona sent Aditi the second notice and also moved a petition in the assembly for her disqualification on Tuesday. Party sources said here on Wednesday that Congress will not succumb to any pressure tactics and take strict action against anyone violating the norms.
However, the second notice to Aditi is likely to meet the same fate like the first one. Aditi is an MLA from the prestigious Rae Bareli (Sadar) assembly seat, which is one of the five assembly segments of the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat held by Sonia Gandhi.
In the petition filed before UP Assembly Speaker Hriday Narain Dikshit, the Congress said that Aditi Singh had defied party’s whip to boycott the special session. On October 2, Aditi skipped ‘Shanti Yatra’, led by party’s national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, to attend the special session convened by the UP government. The next day, Aditi’s demand for security enhancement, which was pending since June following an attack on her, was fulfilled by the Yogi government. Her meeting with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on October 16 also sparked speculations of her exit from the Congress.
However, she dismissed it as a routine visit to discuss development projects in her constituency. She had also skipped a party training session in Rae Bareli between October 22 and 24. But the petition to disqualifyi Aditi is likely to be binned like the petitions moved against Congress MLA Rakesh Pratap Singh and his MLC brother Dinesh Pratap Singh. The brother duo have joined the BJP but continue to be Congress MLA and MLC.
Dinesh even contested the last Lok Sabha polls on BJP ticket against Sonia Gandhi but he is still the Congress MLC on paper. Earlier, the 10 expelled senior Congress leaders had raised the issue of party’s biased attitude against them when a MLA had openly violated the norms and party was too week to act against her. Interestingly, Congress, instead of expelling the rebels, sought to sweep the issue under the carpet after submitting application for their disqualification from the House.