Maharashtra Congress leaders in slugfest before civic polls

New Delhi: The infighting within Mumbai Congress once again surfaced just days before the municipal elections, with senior leader and party’s general secretary Gurudas Kamat questioning the “behaviour” of two of his party colleagues.

Voicing his grievances on Twitter, Mr Kamat said, “Sad to see 2nd generation to leave Congress due to Nirupam and Mohan Prakash behaviour. Rahul and Ahmed Patel should stop the bleed.” While Sanjay Nirupam is the party’s Mumbai chief, Mr Prakash is the general secretary in-charge of Maharashtra.

Mr Kamat’s tweet is an immediate fallout of Krishna Hegde, a former Congress MLA and a close aide of former MP Priya Dutt, joining the BJP. According to Mr Kamat, Mr Nirupam is “systematically targeting” Congress workers, Priya Dutt and other leaders from Mumbai “who are not close to him”. He has since decided to stay away from the coming BMC elections.

The current infighting in Mumbai Congress aligns itself with differences in party’s several other state units such as Uttarakhand, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.

Sensing trouble, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has deputed senior leader and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to sort out the imbroglio in Mumbai Congress, and he is set to interact with all the stakeholders on January 25, Mr Kamat claimed in another tweet.

Discontent among the Congress cadre has been visible over distribution of tickets for the upcoming municipal elections. Congress had started the process of short-listing candidates with the help of observers and other leaders. A committee headed by Mr Nirupam has been tasked with releasing the final list of candidates.

Mr Kamat’s tenure with the Congress has had its ups and downs. After he resigned from the party in July last year, several rounds of talks and the intervention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi saw him coming back into the Congress fold. On several occasions, he has made it clear he was not on talking terms with Mr Prakash.