Taking cue from 23 senior leaders urging the Congress brass for a complete overhaul of the organisation in Delhi recently, some leaders, earlier expelled by the UP Congress chief, have approached dissenting leaders in Delhi and also wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi to act immediately to prevent the outfit from becoming “a history” in UP.
Congress veterans like Satyadeo Tripathi, Santosh Singh, Vinod Chaudhary, Rajendra Singh Solanki, Siraj Mehndi, Madhur Narain Mishra, Nek Chandra Pandey, Swayam Prakash Goswami, Sanjeev Singh and others apprised Sonia Gandhi how their voices were being stifled by emerging leaders in recent past.
The leaders’ ire was directed at UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and his way of functioning. They charged that important organisational posts were given to persons with no knowledge of the party’s ideology.
These leaders said when they tried to initiate some steps for revival of the party last year, Lallu, influenced by these leaders, expelled them from the outfit, accusing them of anti-party activities.
The veterans also pointed out that when they sought time from the Congress chief to put across their side of the story and also wrote to party’s central disciplinary committee, urging it to review their expulsion, they were never given the chance to be heard.
The leaders appealed to Sonia Gandhi to rise above family politics and take up serious issues with senior leaders and revive the outfit failing which these so-called “new” leaders would ensure that the Congress faded away into oblivion.
Congress sources in Lucknow claimed some of these party veterans were also in touch with dissenting party leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal and had extended their support to their demand of complete revamp of the party through democratic means.