Upswing the party is feeling since the thumping win at lohardaga brought unseasonal cheer on Sunday when Congress office received band, baaja and baraat. With election nowhere in sight, hundreds of workers said to be earlier with the ruling BJP and AJSU sneaked into the party fold and well received by top brass in Jharkhand, i.e. State president Sukhdeo Bhagat and former Ranchi MP Subodh Kant Sahay.
The workers are claimed to have been active in Ranchi and Hatia Assembly constituencies since long and their switching over to the Congress was like a slap to the ruling alliance, said the party leaders. State Congress general secretary Alok Dubey played important role in bringing them into the party.
“There is no election season when such mergers take place. These people have joined the party for the rights and feeling the plight of the common man. People are feeling cheated when both the Governments here at State and at the Center are in a competition of spreading falsehood. Congress would not let you down and vows to take it to logical conclusion,” said Sukhdeo Bhagat welcoming the herd into the party.
Earlier the workers took a lap of the city before converging to the party office where they were welcomed on the tunes of nagara and mandar and handed over the Gandhi cap; the traditional attire that is now rarely seen on the heads of well-off Congress leaders. After long, the party office was filled with workers and activities, heard sloganeering hailing national leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and slamming the State Government for its allround failures.
“The Congress is on the roll now. We have swept local body elections at Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Assembly election in Jharkhand. It symbolizes that one year fraud of the Raghubar Das Government has come to its end. They are doing a drama in the name of ‘yojna banao abhiyan’. I appeal to the Congress president to sound bugle throughout the State. I will roam allover to expose the BJP and its failures,” said Sahay. Alok Dubey in his welcome address said that the ‘mahamilan’ would boost the party at the time when it was needed the most.
The occasion in a sense also managed to fill some fissures the party is living with. Often not seen on the same page, both Sahay and Bhagat lauded each other which also indicated to a drift towards growing in stature the incumbent PCC chief.
Nevertheless, there are sulking handfuls as well in the form of Pradeep Balmuchu and co. who remained aloof from the fanfare.