After failing to rein in senior leaders of the party to gather crowd for the proposed Bharat Bachao Rally in New Delhi on December 14, UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’ has now entrusted former parliamentarians and legislators to oversee one district each as a face saver.
But by doing so, Lallu has passed on the ominous task of mobilising crowd for the rally on these leaders, If they fail, they will face the wrath of Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for the thin turnout.
Earlier, after getting nod from Priyanka, 10 veteran UP Congress leaders, including former ministers Satya Deo Tripathi, Ram Krishna Dwivedi, former MP Santosh Singh and some former MLAs and MLCs, were shown the door, ostensibly over their reservations to Lallu’s leadership, for “anti-party activity”.
However, their fault was that instead of attending the official birth anniversary celebrations of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, these leaders organised their own functions to pay tributes to both leaders.
Lallu had been eyeing opportunity as he was miffed with the thin attendance at the meeting to chalk strategy for Bharat Bachao Rally — only 14 of the 68 temporary district and city chiefs turned up at the meeting. He was in for another rude shock as in a later meeting, only 60 of the 600 former MPs, MLAs and Lok Sabha and Assembly poll candidates turned up.
To send out a message that dissidence would not be tolerated, Lallu coaxed Priyanka and got the 10 veteran leaders expelled from the party.
When other party seniors refused to back Lallu’s leadership, Priyanka herself intervened and stayed put in Lucknow for two days to iron out the differences. She also held a meeting of Strategic Committee comprising nine senior leaders to ensure that the Delhi rally was successful and also issued guidelines on agitation against the UP government over various issues like crime against women, rising prices, farmers issue etc.
But only a day after the meeting, fissures among Congress leaders surfaced when 500 odd party workers led by former Union minister Jitin Prasada converged at the GPO Park to protest the killing of Unnao rape victim. Later, Lallu too reached the GPO the same evening to stage protest and courted arrest but he had only a dozen Congressmen with him.
An upset Lallu has now decided to make these senior leaders accountable and ensure a large crowd in the Delhi rally on December 14.
Senior Congress leader Onkar Singh, who has been asked to look after the media until the rally, revealed that Lallu has deputed veteran leaders including former ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs from UP as in-charge of one district each and has directed them to ensure maximum turnout at the rally.
Singh said that prominent among these senior leaders include Pramod Tewari, Salman Khurshid, Shri Prakash Jaiswal, Nirmal Khatri, Aradhana Mishra, Deepak Singh, Rajeev Shukla, Jitin Prasada, RPN Singh, Pradeep Jain Aditya, PL Punia.