news details |
|
|
| Congress poaches PDP man,its own house left vulnerable | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 22: A year after it returned to power in partnership with National Conference, the Congress today laid hands on the first poaching catch even as the fate of rebels who contested 2009 assembly elections against party mandate still remains undecided.
Former Minister Manjeet Singh’s switchover in Vijaypur is neither a big shot in arm for the Congress nor a major loss for the Peoples Democratic Party, the party which has deserted after enjoying a ministerial berth for nearly four years in lieu of deserting the Bahujan Samaj Party. However, the development marks some amount of seriousness on part of Congress in expanding its political constituency which remained entirely out of focus as leaders remained engaged in their factional fights.
Political observers are at loss of imagination as Congress has not been making any serious efforts on deciding the fate of over two-dozen rebels lost by the party in late 2008 due to ticket distribution blunders. Notable among them are Balwan Singh of Marh, Babu Singh of Kathua, Shivdev Singh of Nagrota and Ashok Sharma of Kalakote. These candidates contested elections as independents and scored better than party’s official nominees.
The party has not been able to take a fair line in the rebels even as few of them were inducted back in the party fold on pick and choose basis. There is an unrest and confusion in party circles in the wake of recent join-in of Sardari Lal Dubey in Congress. Sardari Lal had contested 1996 Assembly polls on Congress mandate from Reasi constituency and had been Secretary of Pradesh Congress Committee. However, a few months ahead of 2008 assembly polls, he had left Congress, switched over to Panthers Party and contested as Panthers Party nominee from the said segment scoring around 1500 votes. Pertinent to mention that the Congress minister, Jugal Kishore had lost the seat by a narrow margin. Another such rebel, Shivdev Singh, has already been inducted in the party at the instance of a sitting MP.
Insiders say that the disciplinary panel, headed by hero of lost ‘waterloo’ at Vijaypur, has stalled the ‘home-coming’ of Babu Singh, former minister, Ashok Sharma, and Balwan Singh, General Secretaries of P.C.C. and R.S. Pathania, General Secretary PYC who had contested elections as independent candidates in their respective assembly segments after being wrongfully denied party mandates. All of them have proved the point that party’s decision debarring party mandates was unjust and miscalculated and they had the capacity and fullest potential to win their seats on party mandates.
In view of visibly wider mass-base in their respective areas, these people had also been lured by the other parties to contest elections on their party tickets but they refused to do so. As a countdown to the elections and riff-raff weather prevailing in Congress on account of worst-ever factional war going on there, many parties are in constant touch with these people. Turning down all such offers by other parties, these independents have travelled and trooped all along to New Delhi and apprised the high command that they want to remain within Congress as their mental make-up and ideological frame of mind is that of Congress
It is pertinent to mention here that the disciplinary panel headed by Thakur Hari Singh had recommended disciplinary action against these ‘independents’ to the party high command in New Delhi. Instead of being regretful to the public-popular people who were wrongfully denied party tickets and had scored many, many times more votes than official candidates, vested interests within the party seem to be out and out to play truant with them and keep them at bay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
