Over a year long battle between state president, Nirmal Khatri and former state president, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, over appointment of president of city unit of the Party in lucknow, finally seems to be over. Rita, who is lone Congress MlA from lucknow, finally score when her close lieutenant, Bodhlal Shukla, has been named as new president of the lucknow City Congress unit, on Friday.
Interestingly, to ensure that the differences within the Party over the above appointment should now come to the fore, Khatri further increased the size of it’s jumbo size Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee and had appointed acting City Congress president, Amit Srivastava ‘Tyagi’ as Organising Secretary and Shailendra Tewari (earlier appointed as one of the co-ordinator when lucknow was divided in four zones), as secretary in UPCC.
Sources said that due to dispute between Khatri and Rita Bahuguna Joshi, over getting hold over the City Congress unit, the selection of candidate for president post was postponed by Khatri, reportedly to gradually cut down the size of former state president, Rita Bahuguna Joshi. It may be mentioned here that Khatri had also over-looked recommendation of many senior leaders during selection of district and city Congress units and many of the prominent Party faces which included most of the former minister in United Progressive Alliance-11 rule could not get their loyalist selected as local Party chiefs in the native towns. Agitated with this, one of the minister even openly criticised Khatri for several months but in the last, he suddenly maintained a big silence after finding that Khatri had played his cards well before the Congress high-command (read Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi).
Sources further said that Khatri in January this year tried to play a ‘master-stroke’ when he announced division of lucknow City Congress unit and appointed four leaders as co-ordinator of the City Unit. State President, also managed to get nod of the All India Congress Committee General Secretary, Madhusudan Mistri’, who is also incharge of Party affairs here in UP. With AICC’s blessings, Khatri made official announcement of appointment of Maroof Khan, Amit Srivastava, Mamta Chaudhary and Shailendra Tiwari as four co-ordinators of City Congress unit. Interestingly, leaving aside Mamta Chowdhary, all the other leaders were never seen as Rita’s loyalists and all the three were always seen standing behind Khatri, during his silent conflict with former State President. However, this time, Khatri, who managed to cut down all his opponents to size, faced humiliation when Rita reportedly took the matter with the Party’s high command and register her serious protest. To stop the bickering, Khatri immediately suspended the appointments of the four in-charge coordinators within a couple of hours of its announcement.
According to sources, Khatri, after putting the announcement under suspension period, had reportedly made every bid to get his lieutenant as City Congress president. However, after silent war between Khatri and Rita, over the above issue now for over a year, UPCC chief finally seems to have given up and made Rita Bahuguna’s close lieutenant, Bodhlal Shukla, as the city Congress president of lucknow, on Friday.
Interestingly, Budhlal Shukla, hails from Hardoi and also contested election from there. However, he earlier remained as acting president of City Congress Unit in lucknow, when Rita was state president. It may be also mentioned that differences between Khatri and Rita, is also evident from the fact what when the state president, adjusted Amit Srivastava and Shailendra Tewari, the two lucknow co-ordinators, in State unit on Friday, he gave no assignment to Mamata Chowdhary, as she was known to be close to Rita. The fourth co-ordinator Maroof Khan is already in UPCC committee.
Meanwhile, Khatri also made some changes in the incharges of Hamirpur, Ghaziabad, Mahoba, Faizabad, lakhimpur Kheri, Mathura in city and district units. Now Dinesh Kumar Singh will be new district president of Hamirpur, Om Prakash Sharma of Ghaziabad, Trilok Mohan Tewari of Mahoba District Congress, Rajendra Pratap Singh of Faizabad, Sanjay Goswami of lakhimpur Kheri, Sohan Singh Sisodiya of Mathura District Congress and Abid Hussain as City Congress president in Mathura, respectively.