Three UP Congmen want refund

lucknow: it was "pressure politics" atits best on monday. in an obvious bid to embarrass the uttar pradesh congresscommittee (upcc) chief shri prakash jaiswal, three aspirants who were deniedparty tickets from kanpur — jaiswal''s hometown — staged a sit-inoutside the party headquarters. the three were demanding a refund of half themoney they had deposited with their applications for a ticket. a piquantsituation arose as shyam dhar singh, sheetal tiwari and devendra nathchaturvedi, squatted holding placards even as embarrassed office-bearers triedhard to dismiss the issue as the handiwork of a disgruntled group in thecongress. the congress had demanded money for assembly tickets this time,according to the recommendations of the manmohan singh committee. the amount wasrs 5,000 for a general seat and rs 2,500 for a reserved constituency. eventhough this raised a few eyebrows, the move was explained by senior leaders as ameasure necessary to "sift grains from chaff". the rules had also ordained therefund of half the sum in case the applicant failed to get a ticket. accordingto figures given by party functionaries 402 out of 5,500 candidates were giventickets. the party has to return more than a crore to "rightful owners", thefunctionaries admitted on monday, but the manner of demand took everyone bysurprise. interestingly, singh, who spearheaded the money-back movement, wasfrank enough to admit that money was not what he wanted. "a sum of rs 2,500 istoo paltry for me," he said.