Factionalism in state unit: Top Cong bosses worried

Growing rifts within the state Congress unit has forced the party high command to constitute a disciplinary committee to oversee the actions of ‘errant leaders’. The top Congress leadership has asked its city unit for reports of such leaders with tangible proof, post elections.   

Sources told Millennium Post that the committee has conducted a video recording of Sonia Gandhi’s rally to figure out the number of spectators being brought to the rally from each Assembly constituency.

‘We will also conduct a detailed video recording of Rahul Gandhi’s rally this coming Sunday. The committee wants to know who is actually working and who is just going through the motions, in preparations for the coming parliamentary elections,’ said a senior party leader.

The video recordings are largely focused on who is bringing how many people to these rallies. The party had arranged a number of buses to bring in supporters to the rally. However, there were complaints that some ‘dissatisfied’ party leaders, who allegedly belong to the former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s lobby, had brought back empty buses.

Many former and sitting party MLAs, including former cabinet ministers of the Dikshit government, had registered their protests against party MPs for ignoring them. Many such complaints were received from the New Delhi and the North-WestDelhi parliamentary constituencies.

‘The committee will first scrutinise recordings and then compile a report. The report will be forward to the high command. If certain leaders were found guilty, the party high command has decided to give them a final warning. If they continue sulk, action will be taken against them,’ he added.

Party sources say that there are complaints about many of Sheila Dikshit’s ‘blue eyed boys’, who are not helping their sitting MPs in their election campaigns.

The entire committee has been asked to maintain distance from party leaders so that they aren’t influenced by anyone and formulate an independent report about infighting, factionalism and other problems in the party.

After a couple of rallies by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, which saw poor numbers and a crushing defeat in the last Assembly elections, Dikshit, who is now the Governor of Kerala, had clearly said that the an ‘internal sabotage’ had led to the results. The sour relationship between the Dikshit and the then Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief JP Agarwal’s ‘lobbies’ were out in the open.