Cong strife out in the open

PUNE, Jan 6: The internal bickering in the city unit of the Congress is all set to take a serious turn with the party chief slapping show...

PUNE, Jan 6: The internal bickering in the city unit of the Congress is all set to take a serious turn with the party chief slapping show cause notices on a senior Congress corporator and former deputy mayor Ramesh Khanna and corporator Nitin Jagtap accusing them of violating the party discipline.

The notices were issued by general secretary Virendra Kirad demanding that they explain as to why action should not be taken against the two when they had deliberately approached the media to state their demand for removal of the city Congress chief Mohan Joshi. The corporators have been directed to submit their reply within seven days.

Besides Khanna and Jagtap, corporators Rajlakshmi Bhosale, Ajit Darekar, Arvind Shinde, Padmaja Gole and the party8217;s women cell chairperson Neeta Rajput were also present at the press conference which demanded Joshi8217;s removal.

The corporators had also threatened to resign en masse from their posts, if the state leadership did not remove Joshi within three days. They had taken strong objection to Joshi8217;s decision of appointing office-bearers without consulting the seniors and had alleged that almost all the office-bearers appointed by Joshi had contested the last civic election against the party8217;s official nominees.

While show cause notices were issued only to Khanna and Jagtap, Neeta Pardeshi was directed to submit a written proposal to the party chief for permission to hold a mahila melava at the Congress Bhavan on January 9. The notices issued to Khanna and Jagtap stated that they had given interviews to the press which amounted to defaming the party chief. Surprisingly, when Joshi was contacted he expressed ignorance about the matter. But in the same breath said he would not comment about the party8217;s internal matters.

Khanna and Jagtap told media persons that they had immediately contacted senior party leaders like Ajit Pawar and MPCC General Secretary Gurunath Kulkarni. quot;We firmly believe that the party chief has no authority to issue these show cause notices,quot; Khanna and Jagtap averred. Reacting sarcastically, Jagtap said that Mohan Joshi may have issued the show cause notice since his Jagtap8217;s writ petition against Chief Minister Manohar Joshi8217;s son-in-law Girish Vyas would have given a bad name to the party !

A visibly disturbed Khanna said he was trying to get in touch with senior Congress leader Sharad Pawar following which he would decide on the further course of action. Ajit Darekar too lashed out at the manner in which the show cause notice was issued to a senior Congress corporator and charged that it was a gameplan of Pune Vikas Aghadi founder Suresh Kalmadi, to create discontent among the corporators when the party had bright chances of winning the mayoral election.