Day after Cong announces candidates for RS polls, fissures within the party come to fore
NEW DELHI: Voices of discontent have emerged from the Congress after the party announced 10 candidates for the June 10 Rajya Sabha polls with actressturned-politician Nagma Morarji raising questions over the candidatures.
The Congress on Sunday announced candidates for the polls, fielding former Union ministers P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and Ajay Maken as well as party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.
Taking to Twitter on Sunday night, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera tweeted, “Shayad meri tapasya mein kuch kami reh gayi (Maybe my penance fell short).” However, he posted another tweet in the morning, asserting that the Congress has given him his identity.
“I am not only in agreement with this view of mine but also stand by it,” he said, tagging one of his tweets a few days ago in which he had said Congress leaders must not forget that their identity was because of the party.
Khera congratulated those
whose candidature has been approved by the party.
Morarji made her disappointment clear as she responded to Khera’s tweet on penance, saying, “My 18 years of penance fell short before Imran bhai (Imran Pratapgarhi, who has been fielded from Maharashtra) “Sonia Ji our Congress president had personally committed to accommodating me in RS in 2003/04 when I joined Congress party on her behest we weren’t in power then. Since then it’s been 18Yrs they didn’t find an opportunity Mr Imran is accommodated
in RS from Maha. I ask am I less deserving,” she tweeted.
She, however, also congratulated those fielded by the party in the Rajya Sabha polls.
Responding to Morarji’s tweet, Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam said in a tweet that the penance of Salman Khurshid, Tariq Anwar and Ghulam Nabi Azad was of over 40 years, but they too were “martyred”.
“’Suppression’ of talent is a ‘suicidal step’ for the party,” he said in another tweet in Hindi.
Rajasthan’s Independent MLA from Sirohi Sanyam Lodha was scathing in his criticism of the party.
“The Congress party should tell what is the reason for not making any Congress leader/ worker from Rajasthan, a candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections?” he wrote in a tweet in Hindi and tagged Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
A former Congress leader Lodha had contested the 2018 assembly elections as an independent candidate after the party denied him a ticket. Reacting to his tweet, Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore said that no one knows better than Lodha the pain of giving Rajya Sabha election ticket to outsiders because the Congress has denied ticket to him every time.
“My friend, you said in the House (assembly) that you are a slave of the Gandhi-Nehru family and always wanted to do slavery. Who gave slave the right to ask questions? No one knows better than you the pain of giving Rajya Sabha election ticket to outsiders because Congress party has denied you ticket every time,” he tweeted.