Babaria new Cong MP general secy
The Congress on Saturday divested general secretary Mohan Prakash of the charge of Madhya Pradesh, and appointed Deepak Babaria in his place.
The party also removed All India Mahila Congress chief Shobha Oza and named Lok Sabha MP from Assam Sushmita Dev in her place.
Babaria’s elevation from secretary to general secretary comes nearly 14 months ahead of the crucial assembly elections in the BJP-ruled state. Madhya Pradesh along with Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh goes to polls in November-December 2018.
Congress sources said state chief Arun Yadav will also be replaced soon.
Hailing from Gujarat, 64-yearold Babaria is a close confidante of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who picked him as a member of his core team in 2012. He will be assisted by two secretaries - Zubair Khan and Sanjay Kapoor.
The Congress is struggling to regain power in Madhya Pradesh after being ousted from power in 2003 when Digvijaya Singh was the chief minister. Since then, the BJP has won three consecutive assembly elections and also majority of seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
Both Prakash (67) and Yadav (43) had come under severe criticism over their style of functioning. The state leaders had repeatedly complained to the party high command that they had failed in reviving the party and energising the cadre.
While Yadav took over as the state Congress chief in January 2014 ahead of the April-May Lok Sabha elections, Prakash was elevated as general secretary and given the charge of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh in June 2013.
Prakash, however, continues to hold the charge of Maharashtra and the sources said he faces strong resentment there also.
Senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat had in April this year resigned as the party general secretary and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member in protest against Prakash’s handling of the state affairs.
The elevation of 44-year-old Dev, who represents Silchar in the Lok Sabha, is widely seen as a reward for her performance in and outside Parliament.
Dev has been strongly raising the women’s issues and in March this year launched an online petition to make sanitary napkins tax-free.
The move received overwhelming support. She had also written to finance minister Arun Jaitley in this regard.
It’s been four years since communal riots in the Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in Uttar Pradesh but 200 families are yet to receive compensation, says a new Amnesty International India report released on Friday.
Violence broke out on September 7, 2013, and on October 26, the then SP government announced it would provide onetime compensation of ₹500,000 to families from the nine worst-affected villages and employment to one member of each of the families of 60-odd people killed.
The government says it distributed compensation to 1,800 families but the report ‘Nowhere to Go: The Broken Promises to the displaced of Muzaffarnagar and Shamli’ says 200 of them didn’t get anything.
“This denial of compensation is a failure of the state to respond to the internally displaced people… compensation, we must understand, is also not about money only…rehabilitation is much bigger challenge,” said activist Farah Naqvi, arguing for a new law for such people.
The report listed four ways in which people had been allegedly denied compensation. First, the definition of a family was inconsistently applied. The second was bias in the identification of families. Victims had to get a signed affidavit from the village chief but in many cases, the pradhans allegedly misused their power and harassed victims.
Third, riot victims missed out because of clerical errors. In at least two cases, compensation, says the report, was denied to families on the ground that it had already been paid to an older relative who died several years ago.
The fourth reason was corruption. Many riot victims alleged that they had been forced to pay a percentage of the compensation money as a bribe to officials, the report said.
BABARIA’S ELEVATION FROM SECRETARY TO GENERAL SECRETARY COMES NEARLY 14 MONTHS AHEAD OF
THE CRUCIAL ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN THE BJPRULED STATE THE GOVERNMENT SAYS IT GAVE COMPENSATION TO 1,800 FAMILIES BUT THE REPORT SAYS
200 OF THEM DIDN’T
GET ANYTHING