With Uttar Pradesh Mahila Congress lying in a vegetative state since the resignation of Pratima Singh a year back, the newly-appointed general secretary of All-India Mahila Congress, Aditi Singh, had to call supporters from her native place Rae Bareli to welcome her at the UPCC headquarters in lucknow on Saturday.
Aditi Singh is also Congress MlA from Rae Bareli.
Besides Aditi’s supporters from Rae Bareli, other prominent persons present to welcome her included Congress MlC Deepak Singh and party MlA Aradhana Mishra.
“No flag or hoarding was put at the UPCC headquarters, raising a question mark over the intent of the party state unit in welcoming our leader,” said an associate of Aditi while reacting to the low key welcome accorded to her at UPCC office here on Saturday afternoon.
“Surprisingly, we even faced difficulty in locating the UPCC headquarters in lucknow,” the leader told a senior office-bearer of UP Congress, suggesting that it would have been better had some party flags been put up to welcome Aditi.
Sources in the party said that about a hundred women clad in yellow and pink sarees were brought from Rae Bareli to ensure a noticeable gathering at UPCC to welcome Aditi.
later, talking to media persons, Aditi Singh said that she would work hard and contribute to the uplift of women workers and the party in the largest state of the country.
She also attacked the state government, saying that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had failed to ensure safety and security to women and the peaking crime graph reflected that women were not safe in UP.
later, the All-India Mahila Congress general secretary interacted with some members of the defunct UP Mahila Congress and assured them to strengthen the wing at the earliest.
The UP Mahila Congress has been in a vegetative state for almost a year now. Neither party president Rahul Gandhi nor UPCC chief Raj Babbar have taken any interest to revive the Congress women’s wing in the state that was once was of the most active frontal outfit of the party.
After resignation of Meera Singh from Mahila Congress chief’s post during Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s regime, the outfit remained headless for several years. After Raj Babbar took over as UPCC chief, Pratima Singh was made the president but she too remained for a short period and resigned after finding that the UPCC had sidelined the wing.
In the 2015 lok Sabha polls and 2017 Assembly election, no one from UP Mahila Congress was fielded by the Congress even when former AICC chief Sonia Gandhi and now Rahul Gandhi strongly advocated 33 per cent reservation for women in the party.