Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee president Sukhdeo Bhagat ended his nearly week-long trip to Delhi on Wednesday where, internal reports suggest, he was involved in intense lobbying for the top post. It is learnt that his rival camp comprising some heavyweights from the party had pitched strongly against him in their respective meetings taken place last week with Congress national vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
The trip and a series of meetings with top leadership have happened at an important juncture when the Congress’ internal elections are round the corner for choosing presidents starting from blocks to national level via various PCCs.
“On May 19 host of party leaders from Jharkhand Congress met Rahul Gandhi. There were some one-to-one meetings of the leaders like Pradeep Balmuchu with him in which leadership issue in the State besides, others were raised. Obviously no assurance in writing could be given in such cases but we have been assured (about change of guard),” said an MlA of the anti-Sukhdeo faction.
The rival camp is clamouring for the head of the incumbent State Congress chief for long and on many occasions had knocked the door of the high command by leveling some serious charges, including mismanagement of fund, corruption, nepotism etc. Party MlAs Irfan Ansari and Manoj Kumar Yadav have openly expressed their lack of confidence in Sukhdeo Bhagat.
“We think that the time has come. We were given assurance about the leadership change during the internal elections. I met for 15 minutes with Rahul Gandhi on May 19 and provided him all the feedbacks sought and how the party could be strengthened. I told him specifically that party cadres are not able to work under the PCC president in the absence of any programme. People are being killed in the home district of the CM but we are nowhere protesting against it! It is now up to him to decide,” said Jamtara legislator Irfan Ansari.
The group also believes that there is now incumbent upon Sukhdeo Bhagat to prove his mettle before the high command and his relevance in the organisation. “That is why he kept himself stationed in Delhi for so long at the time when AICC leader and spokesperson Sobha Oza was in Ranchi to ‘expose’ BJP Governments continuing both at the Centre and the State,” said another senior party leader.
Moreover, the backers of the State Congress chief are not less in numbers. Most of the office bearers at the PCC firmly believe that there is not going to be any change as far as the leadership is concerned.
“These all are just talks. They have been trying this since Bhagat became president of the party in Jharkhand about five years back. The party has performed well under his tenure. As far as internal elections are concerned, we have precedence to leave it to party high command instead of an open polling to ensure consensus. This is most likely to be done this time around as well,” said party general secretary Alok Kumar Dubey.