Congress western UP in-charge Jyotiraditya Scindia and UPCC President Raj Babbar during a review meeting with ... Read More

LUCKNOW: Several senior leaders of UP Congress skipped a meeting to review the Lok Sabha election, chaired by party's west UP in-charge Jyotiraditya Scindia here on Friday.

Among the prominent absentees were Jitin Prasada, Imran Masood, Salman Khurshid and Shri Prakash Jaiswal - all of whom lost the Lok Sabha elections.

Though some seniors claimed candidates from constituencies close to Delhi-NCR were to attend separate meeting in Delhi, murmurs of 'preferential treatment to bigwigs' were heard at UP Congress office.

"Why did the party meet them separately? Lucknow is not far from Delhi. We could have also gone to Delhi," said one of 28 candidates who attended the meeting.

Claiming that the big guns deliberately stayed away from the Lucknow meet, a party leader said, "this class difference was a big barrier in rebuilding the party".

In the meeting, candidates blamed party's frail organisation for their failure. Many said they did not even get adequate number of poll agents. One candidate said scrutiny of cadres is also needed and alleged that some Congress workers act as informers for other parties .

A party member said members and support base that local leaders display were a 'farce'. "Anyone can enrol a new member by filling a simple Rs 5 form. The base... is filled with ghost members."

Some from the organisational unit conceded the party organisation in UP is weak. "Fresh appointment of district chiefs was pending since April 2017. After Raj Babbar took over as UP chief it was assumed the list would be released soon. The entire exercise was re-done in March 2018 after Rahul Gandhi became party president. But the leadership didn't take a decision. There is still ambiguity on the issue," a leader told Scindia and Babbar in the meeting.

Later talking to reporters, Scindia said: "The results were disheartening, but we need to regroup and prepare for the next challenge. In the next two weeks, we will finalise our strategy for UP assembly bypolls."

