Delhi Congress chief dissolves all 280 block committees of party before Assembly polls

Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit dissolved all the block-level committees of the party on Friday, hours after meeting party president Rahul Gandhi.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee(DPCC) president Sheila Dikshit has dissolved all the 280 block Congress committees in Delhi "with immediate effect", a party statement said.

Dikshit took this decision "keeping in line with" the report submitted by the five-member fact-finding committee constituted to probe the reasons behind party's massive defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, it said.

The Delhi unit of Congress has apparently failed to recover from differences among its leaders, with the anti-Dikshit group claiming that the block committees could not be resolved without the permission of All India Congress Committee(AICC) incharge of the party PC Chacko.

The block committees were elected last year when Ajay Maken headed the Delhi Congress.

"The decision to disband the block committees formed under presidentship of Maken is an attempt by Dikshit to stamp her authority by reconstituting them under her leadership," said a senior Delhi Congress leader.

The process for constitution of new committees has begun in view of the Assembly elections in Delhi scheduled early next year, he said.

The differences in the party had surfaced during Lok Sabha polls, when PC Chacko and Maken batted for an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) to defeat the BJP.

Dikshit and her followers in the party strongly resisted the alliance which finally failed to materialise.