UP Cong ‘revamp likely this month’
Fresh faces may include social activists, student leaders and grass-root level workers, says party leaders
PRAYAGRAJ :The Congress is waiting for Pitrapaksh—a period considered inauspicious for new beginnings and new things— to end on September 28 before it announces its Uttar Pradesh team and names its new state president, party leaders privy to the process claimed here.
With by-polls for a dozen assembly seats on the cards, the new Congress team in the state is expected to be a surprise with many new faces and could include social activists, student leaders and grass-root level workers who have not held a post in the party administration in the past, they added.
Congress leaders aware of the goings on said that the new Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), unlike in the past, will be much smaller with sizeable presence of youth and women.
“The new UPCC will just have around 40 odd members with even the number of state party secretaries accordingly reduced to around 12 and the number of general secretaries cut down to six, unlike in the past when there were many,” added a senior Congress leader.
The average age of the new team will be 48-50 years, he added. For the past over three months, Congress general secretary and in-charge of East UP Priyanka Gandhi had been holding meetings with party workers and leaders from across the state.
“The team has been finalised on the basis of a confidential report especially prepared for the mission. Congress secretaries like Zubair Khan, Bajirao Khade, Sachin Naik, Dhiraj Gurjar, Rohit Chaudhary and Rana Goswami besides some other leaders had toured the state since June on the directions of Priyanka Gandhi and submitted a comprehensive report of the party’s position and leadership in the state.
It is on the basis of this very report that the team has been formed having a balanced representation
of Dalits, other backward classes (OBCs) and others,” added the Congress leader. On appointment the new state president, party leaders claimed that Congress legislature party (CLP) leader and MLA from Tamkuhi Raj constituency of Kushinagar district Ajay Kumar Lallu was at the forefront.
A grass-root worker of the party, a former student leader and one who lost the 2007 assembly polls and headed to Delhi to work as a daily wage labourer, Lallu returned to work for the people before getting elected as MLA from Tamkuhi Raj constituency in 2012 and again in 2017, despite the prevailing pro-BJP and Modi wave.