RANCHI: Amid controversy over not giving proper representation to Muslims and Dalits in the recently issued list of district Congress presidents in Jharkhand, the party on Tuesday withdrew names of four of its newly-appointed district presidents following protest from its Muslim and Dalit cadres. In a hastily-prepared revised list of district presidents, the All India Congress Committee dropped three Brahmins and one OBC from the list.
Apparently, the decision was taken to accommodate three Muslims and one Dalit. The revised list had three Brahmins — Shantanu Mishra (Ramgarh), Srikant Tiwari (Garhwa), Anil Kumar Ojha (Sahibganj) and one OBC Narayan Barnwal (Koderma).
In the revised list released by AICC general secretary KC Venugopal, Mishra has been replaced by Munna Paswan, Tiwari has been replaced by Obedulla Haq Ansari, Ojha has been replaced by Barkatulla Khan and Bernwal has been replaced by Bhairath Paswan. Those who have been dropped from the list will be inducted as office-bearers. Notably, Muslim and Dalit leaders were not pleased after the list was released on Monday and had staged demonstrations and burnt effigies of party state president Rajesh Thakur.