Within three days of Ms Rita Bahuguna Joshi being renominated as UP Congress president, trouble has erupted in the state unit of the party over the nomination of 138 members to the All-India Congress Committee.
The list of AICC members from UP was released on Thursday in Lucknow and Delhi and some glaring omissions in the same are all set to fuel factional wars in the state unit.
The most glaring omissions in the AICC list from UP is that of Dr Sanjay Singh, Congress MP from Sultanpur. Dr Singh is the only Congress MP from UP to be left out from the AICC list. His wife, Rani Ameeta Singh, a Congress MLA from Amethi has also not found a seat in the AICC. Vivek Singh, MLA from Banda, does not figure in the list either.
“These omissions have sent a very wrong signal among Thakurs. The AICC list includes those Thakur leaders who have been out of active politics since the past several years and have not won elections but conveniently leaves out those who are winning elections. Such decisions will alienate the Thakur community from the Congress,” said another legislator whose name does not figure in the list.
The AICC list includes the name of Congress MP Rajiv Shukla who has been elected from Maharashtra but “forgets” to include the name of Capt. Satish Sharma who has been elected to the Rajya Sabha from UP. Mr Rashid Alvi, a senior Muslim leader from UP, also does not figure in the list.
Shekhar Bahuguna, another senior leader, is another omission and not a single member from the media wing of the party has been nominated to the AICC either.
Similarly, Shyam Kishore Shukla, the Congress MLA who wrested the Lucknow West seat from BJP after more than two decades in a byelection last year, has failed to find a berth in the AICC. Mr Shukla is a Congress veteran and so is Mr Kranti Kumar whose name is also conspicuous by its absence in the list.
On the other hand, Salim Shervani, who joined the party on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections last year, has managed to make it to the AICC.
“The party constitution says that a person should have been in the party for a minimum of three years before he can be a member of the AICC. In about half a dozen cases, this rule has been violated,” said another party veteran.
A party spokesman, when asked to explain the discrepancies in the list, said, “This is a tentative list, subject to changes. We do not know how it got leaked to all newspapers. The final list will be officially released very soon and will leave no room for discrepancies.”