AN UNSAVOURY GOOF-UP

THE CONGRESS observed “fourth death anniversary” of Union minister for coal and power Piyush Goyal on April 26 thanks to an unsavoury goof-up by the party. The Union minister was seen among Congress leaders slain in May 25, 2013 Naxal attack at Jheeram Ghati in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district, in a flex poster hoisted on the occasion of the party observing his fourth death anniversary at Thusekela in Raigarh district, Chhattisgarh on the day.

Several senior party leaders, including AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh and Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhupesh Baghel, were present on the occasion, where busts of former PCC president Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh (both killed in the incident) were unveiled.

The slip-up had caused a commotion at the programme, prompting the organisers to immediately pull down the poster.

As some party leaders tried to play down the incident as a “human error”, a section of Congressmen were found wondering why it was only Goyal who had to fall victim to the goof-up.

“The space where Goyal’s picture was found was meant for Congress leader Uday Mudaliar, slain in the Jheeram Ghati Naxal attack. But it has still remained a puzzle for us as to why it was only Goyal who was found wrongly in the company of the martyrs of Jheeram Ghati tragedy of 2013,” a senior Congress leader said.

May be, the Congress was finding it hard to exorcise ghost of the coal scam that continued to haunt the party intermittently, a senior Congress leader quipped, apparently in a tongue-incheek remark.