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A total rout in the recent panchayat elections, poor show in both bypolls held in Uttar Pradesh after the 2019 parliamentary elections, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra seems to have finally started leaning back on the old guards as she revoked the expulsion of three senior Congress leaders and former MLAs, Nek Chandra Pandey, Bhudhar Narayan Mishra and Rajendra Singh Solanki on Tuesday.
Though Priyanka gave no time to party dissidents, who wanted to shun differences and get into the mainstream and contribute to strengthening the party, a Congress communiqué claimed on Tuesday that the expulsion of three former MLAs, earlier expelled along with eight other party veterans in November 2019, was revoked.
The internecine conflict within Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) came out in the open in November 2019 when the state party chief Ajay Kumar Lallu unceremoniously expelled 11 veteran Congress leaders, including 87-year-old Ram Krishna Dwivedi, once a trusted aide of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, for six years.
The leaders who were expelled included Santosh Singh (former MP), Ramakrishna Dwivedi (former home minister of UP), Satyadev Tripathi (former minister), Siraj Mehndi (former MLC), Rajendra Singh Solanki, (AICC member), Bhudhar Narayan Mishra (former MLA), Hafiz Mohammad Omar (former MLA), Vinod Chaudhary (former MLA), Nek Chandra Pandey (former MLA), Swayam Prakash Goswami (former president of Youth Congress), and Sanjeev Singh (former president of Congress district Gorakhpur).
Unable to handle the trauma meted out by the party he served his entire life, a disturbed Dwivedi died a few months after the action. To save them from embarrassment, Lallu got Dwivedi’s expulsion withdrawn a few days prior to his death, citing the leader’s poor health.
The expelled leaders were accused of publicly lambasting the Congress leadership for its decisions on overhaul of the UPCC, holding separate meetings and unilaterally interacting with the media to tarnish the party’s image.
A statement issued by the Congress while announcing the expulsion of 11 leaders said that the leaders concerned indulged in anti-party activities, convened independent meetings and opposed decisions taken by the Congress brass. All these leaders later addressed a press conference in which they claimed that they were being sidelined while efforts were being made to sabotage the party’s organisation in UP. The leaders even sent a representation in this regard to interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi and tried to meet her but failed to get an audience.