In the absence of unified intra-outfit support, Congress leaders have been busy doing rounds of the powers that be for securing the release of UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’.

After writing to Assembly Speaker and the chief secretary, a Congress delegation met Governor Anandiben Patel on Wednesday and sought her intervention to get Lallu released.

Arrested in connection with providing ‘fake’ list of 1,000 buses to the state government, Lallu has been left out in the cold after his bail plea was rejected by MP-MLA special court in Lucknow on Monday.

Congress Legislative Party leader Aradhana Mishra ‘Mona’, who led the delegation to Raj Bhawan on Wednesday, said that the Congress would launch a major protest against the “unlawful detention” of UPCC chief.

“We have faith in the judiciary and also will also appeal in the High Court for bail,” she said.

However, there was no word on whether any legal luminary that the Congress has in its ranks would take up Lallu’s case.

Party sources said that there was no palpable discomfort in the ranks over Lallu’s jail sojourn, exposing the deep divide within the outfit.

So far, the protests over the issue have been restricted to sporting black ribbons, holding a candle march and organising a ‘havan’ for the UPCC chief’s release.

Besides, top party leaders like Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi have confined themselves to token contribution by tweeting in support of Lallu, but no stir or protest has been planned on a large scale as yet.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Priyanka again sought to corner the Yogi Adityanath government over irregularities made in teachers recruitment.

Reacting to High Court staying the selection of teachers in UP, she tweeted, “The irregularities and callous approach of the UP government shattered the dream of 69,000 aspirants from becoming teachers.”

Priyanka alleged that many of the qualified aspirants failed to find their names in the final list due to faulty reservation policy, negligence, paper leak, wrong evaluation and rampant corruption in the Yogi government.

The Congress leader claimed that youths were the worst sufferers in UP where employment remained to be an election slogan for the Bharatiya Janata Party. She alleged that all recruitment made in the state had been stayed by the courts as no transparency and fairness were followed by the government during selection.