Bihar MPs step up smear campaign against Kesri

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

In a final effort to discredit Congress president Sitaram Kesri, dissidents Jagannath Mishra, S S Ahluwalia and Gyan Ranjan staged a protest at the party's Akbar Road headquarters to focus attention on the alleged poll rigging in the Congress's Bihar unit.

The three Congress Rajya Sabha members, all belonging to Bihar and all known followers of P V Narasimha Rao, alleged that Kesri has been trying to pack the 8,000-strong Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee with his men.

While Kesri's supporters ridiculed the allegation, Gyan Ranjan, who jumped on the anti-Kesri bandwagon thanks to Mishra and Ahluwalia's efforts, said Sonia Gandhi could not be oblivious to the allegation that Kesri has been rigging the organisational elections in order to retain his post.

Tariq Anwar, the Congress chief's political secretary, said, ''This is not the first time a smear campaign has been launched against Kesri. Such allegations will continue to be levelled against him, but nothing will happen. The organisational elections will go on smoothly.''

But going by the dissidents' mood, this may seem difficult. Encouraged by Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot's announcement of his candidature for the party president's post, the dissidents have evidently drawn up a strategy which aims at periodically demonstrating outside the AICC headquarters to paint Kesri as the villain of the piece.

According to an AICC joint secretary, Pilot is optimistic about his prospects this time around as, unlike the previous occasion, he has wider support for his cause. Already six party MPs have extended their support to his candidature.

Besides, the concerted campaign of Kesri's detractors indicates that the guiding spirit of the entire campaign could be Narasimha Rao himself. For, most of the party MPs championing the 'remove Kesri campaign' are Rao's followers.

Despite the optimism of Kesri's followers that he will be re-elected party president, Pilot has already managed to strike a telling blow -- Kesri's hopes of arriving at consensus on the issue have gone up in smoke.

So far, the dissidents have not managed to get Sonia's support for their campaign against Kesri. But this may happen eventually as the campaign against Kesri appears to be on the upswing.

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Kesri cannot hold the Congress to ransom: Rajesh Pilot