Sonia forms panel led by JP Aggarwal to screen Assembly candidates in WB
Fissures widened further in the Congress a day after senior Congress leader Anand Sharma slammed the party leadership for its tie-up with the Indian Secular Front (ISF) in the poll-bound West Bengal. On Tuesday, Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury hinted at a possible split in the party when he questioned the intention of his colleague “who is trying to please his future boss’ in a reference to speculation that Sharma may join the BJP.
“If his intention was honest, he could have simply called me. I would have explained the decision of alliance partners to him…but he thought it was better to tarnish the image of the Congress to please somebody who could be his future political boss,” Chowdhury said.
While Sharma is Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha.
The West Bengal Congress chief went ahead to accuse Anand Sharma of criticising the Congress without any reason. “Anand Sharma is more vocal against Congress without any reason. He is simply blowing the issue out of proportion,” Chowdhury stated.
In response to the criticism over alliance with Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddiqui’s ISF, Chowdhury took to twitter to respond to Sharma. “Know Your Facts, Anand Sharma ji. Would urge a select group of distinguished Congressmen to rise above always seeking personal comfort spots & stop wasting time singing praises of PM (Narendra Modi),” Chowdhury mentioned.
Amid the continued war of words between two party veterans over the alliance partners for Assembly elections in West Bengal, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday constituted a screening committee under the chairmanship of veteran Delhi Congress leader JP Aggarwal. The screening committee constituted for the eight-phase Bengal Assembly polls starting March 27 also have Mahesh Joshi and Naseem Khan as members besides some ex-officio members, including the State Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president and the AICC in-charge for West Bengal. The panel would screen the probable party candidates and put forward its recommendations to the Central Election Committee of the Congress chaired by party chief Sonia Gandhi.
The grand old party also formed a screening committee for poll bound States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. While party veteran HK Patil will chair the Kerala Screening Committee with former CM Oomen Chandy and former Union Minister Tariq Anwar as its member, Digvijay Singh will head TN and Puducherry with senior leaders KS Alagiri, K Suresh and former Puducherry CM V Naranswamy as its members.
The Congress divide came in open when Sharma, who was a Union Minister in the Manmohan Singh Government, took to social media to slam the party’s tie-up with ISF saying it was against the “Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism” and the party cannot be selective in fighting the “communalists”.
“CPI(M)-led Left Front is leading the secular alliance in West Bengal of which the Congress is an integral part. We are determined to defeat BJP’s communal and divisive politics and an autocratic regime. The Congress has got its full share of seats. Left Front is allocating seats from its share to the newly formed Indian Secular Front-ISF,” Choudhary wrote on Twitter.
Objecting to Anand Sharma’s choice to call Left-Congress-ISF coalition “communal”, Chowdhury accused him of “only serving” the BJP. Anand Sharma’s attack on Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury came close on the heels of a meeting of G-23 in Jammu, where senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad praised PM Narendra Modi for not forgetting his roots.
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
