Congress Yet To Decide On Up Rebellion
Senior Congress leaders were weighing the pros and cons of ignoring the open rebellion in Uttar Pradesh by former Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Jitendra Prasada against UPCC president Salmaan Khursheed.
If they decide to ignore it, similar things might happen in UP and elsewhere. If the party takes note of it and issues show cause, it might be seen as the high-command backing one leader of the state against the other when organisational elections are round the corner.
Prasada's actions become significant due to his open association with senior leader and CWC member Rajesh Pilot. So far, the criticism by the two leaders has been general: There is no recognition of grassroot workers in the party; there is need to restore inner party democracy; there is need to take the party to the masses.
Specific attacks have been against Salmaan Khursheed by Prasada. They have not been targeted against party president Sonia Gandhi. So far, the party has issued show case notice only in one case of open criticism of Sonia Gandhi _ to economic department secretary Jairam Ramesh. In the rest of the cases, the party has chosen to ignore the remarks in the name of inner-party democracy, saying they were coming from senior leaders and were well-meaning.
In the case of two rallies in Uttar Pradesh by supporters of Jitendra Prasada, he has taken care to mention how he has served the party for the last 30 years. At his freedom fighter's rally in Lucknow on Wednesday, Prasada said he was trying to strengthen the party and would continue to do so in
future.
The problem for Khursheed is that when he is seen as not doing anything much in the state, Prasada is organising rallies. Apart from the Lucknow rally, he held a rally at Jhansi on Sunday. Both the rallies were addressed by Rajesh Pilot who came flying down from London to address them. For Khursheed, the added irritant should be the fact that six out of eight Congress MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and a equal number of MLAs were present at the Lucknow rally.
Khursheed has tried to be dismissive about the crowds saying it was the same 2,500 people Prasada keeps carrying everywhere.