NEW DELHI: The muted discontent within the Delhi Congress is likely to amplify in the coming days as the wounded old guard has knocked on the door of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, alleging sabotage by the state leadership.
According to sources, on July 27, a meeting was held at a party Rajya Sabha MP’s residence in Lutyens’ Delhi where several former state ministers who were part of Sheila Dikshit’s inner circle, including Raj Kumar Chauhan, Yoganand Shastri, Kiran Walia, Mangat Ram Singhal and Ramakant Goswami, decided to take up the matter with Sonia.
On July 28, sources said, a request was sent to 10 Janpath, seeking an urgent meeting to discuss the discomfiture many Dikshit loyalists have been facing. Singhal confirmed the meeting, expressing deep anguish over the treatment meted out to senior leaders. “We are being ignored by the state president (Ajay Maken) and this has to be stopped. Kiran Walia, Ramakant Goswami, Harun Yusuf, Yoganand Shastri and a few others had a meeting. They all expressed the same feeling. We have served the party and will work for it but not the way things are happening now,” Singhal said. Yusuf, however, refrained from making any comments but seemed unhappy with the state president.
“Everyone has his own style of functioning but a leader should take along everyone. No one should be left out,” Yusuf told Express. Ajay Maken, however, denied charges of discontent, saying the performance of party in the recently concluded municipal bypolls speaks volumes about his leadership. The state unit president said, “In last municipal by-polls, vote percentage of the Congress jumped to 29 per cent from a meagre 7. We won those five seats, which never happened in the last 30 years. People and party workers are working together for the party.”