Congress state president Raj Babbar revamped the entire media here on Saturday.
The step was taken by Babbar in the name of strengthening the Party’s media wing just before the coming Assembly elections.
However sources maintained that Babbar, who wanted to continue with `please all’ committee of his predecessor Nirmal Khatri, was forced to make changes to adjust some blue-eyed boys of one of the most senior leader of the Party and a Rajya Sabha MP. Sources also confirmed that Babbar had claimed before some Party leaders that he did not want to touch the UPCC office bearers as his `job’ will end as soon as coming Assembly elections will be over. Hence he once again tried to appease the senior leader of his Party by making adjustments in the media.
Interestingly, the new media team of Babbar also had some faces who were earlier removed after verbal complaints against them of extorting money from public in the name of facilitating `contracts’ or blackmailing the officials involved in implementation of one of the programme of then United Progressive Alliance government. It may be mentioned that a Congress leader also tried to meet the then president Nirmal Khatri to inform that how he was cheated by one of former spokesman of UPCC, but before he could reach the office, the said leader attacked and got him arrested after claiming that the leader was coming to burn the effigy of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
According to an official release of the UPCC, besides RPN Singh, Rajeev Shukla and N Afzal, the Party had three senior spokesman which included Salman Khursheed, Nirmal Khatri and Pl Punia. Babbar also formed a `Think-tank’ cell to decide about the Party’s stand on important issue and also for releasing press-notes on daily basis. This cell will comprise of Satyadeo Tripathi as incharge along with Om Prakash, Sanjay Dikshit, Virendra Madan, Hilal Naqvi, Satish Rai, Sanjeev Pathak and Arshad Azmi as members. The spokesman in the UPCC will now include Satyadeo Tripathi, Fazle Masood, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, Surendra Rajput, Virendra Madan, Hilal Naqvi, RA Prasad, Dwijendra Tripathi, Allahudin, Krishna Kant Pandey and Abdul Mannan Ansari.
The media panelist will consist of Satish Rai, Rajeev Tyagi, Rajeev Bakshi, Amarnath Agarwal, Siddharth Priya Srivastava, Onkar Singh, Maroof Khan, DP Singh, Suleman Khan, Manoj Tyagi, and Shailendra Tewari. The UPCC also had a Media-Management Committee which will comprise of Ranjeet Singh Judeo, Mona Mishra, Siraj Mehndi, Vijendra Singh, Vibhakar Shastri, Virendra Madan and Dwijendra Tripathi. The social media will have Rahul Pande, Shiv Pande, Dhirendra Singh, Abhisekh Arjun, Prashant Singh and Ayaz Khan.
Meanwhile Congress also held a programme to remember former prime minister Indira Gandhi on occasion of start of her birth centenary celebration here on Saturday afternoon. ``Indira Gandhi had always done work for upliftment of poor and how to fill the gap between rich and poor hence all her decision were based on all round welfare of people”, pointed Raj Babbar while remembering Indira Gandhi here on her birth centenary function on Saturday. Babbar said that contrary to Indira Gandhi, the prime minister Narendra Modi is not concerned with common people and he took decision just to see reaction and not it’s consequences or fallout on poor and common people. Babbar made above comments while criticising Modi on demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes. Besides Babbar, other senior leaders of the Party also remembered Indira Gandhi.