Clamour for state Congress chief's ouster grows louder

RANCHI: Congress state president

Sukhdeo Bhagat

is finding himself in troubled waters with voices for his ouster getting louder by the day within the party ranks.

While Bhagat sat with his district presidents on Wednesday to make elaborate plans for celebrating Indira Gandhi's upcoming birth anniversary, the anti-Bhagat lobby met separately to pitch in strongly against the Pradesh Congress Committee president to the party high command in New Delhi.

District committee members, senior Congress leaders

Gulfam Mujeebi

and Ram Babu met under its

Barhi MLA Manoj Kumar Yadav

and vented their discontent against Bhagat, calling him an inefficient leader.

"The party's aim is to strengthen its base in Jharkhand ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election and make Rahul Gandhi the Prime Minister. Under Bhagat's leadership, the support base of the party in districts is eroding," Yadav said after the meeting.

The feud within Congress ranks broke out after many senior leaders and current MLAs were excluded from the new state committee which was constituted last month.

Yadav claimed that the discontent against Bhagat was fast growing in district units for his reluctant approach. The Barhi MLA said they will meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi and its vice president Rahul Gandhi this month and brief about the party's mismanagement in Jharkhand.

In what was termed by Congress insiders as a confidence building exercise, Bhagat met district presidents to chalk out Gandhi's birth anniversary on November 19. "The instructions

were to get closer to the people by distributing fruits, medicines and blankets in every district and block levels," a party member present in the meeting said.

The pro-Bhagat leadership in Congress is also drifting away, insiders said. "Half of the district presidents are against him. Senior leaders like Subodh Kant Sahay are also unhappy with the affairs of the party. But no one is coming out in open," a leader said.

However Bhagat and Sahay on Wednesday walked shoulder-to-shoulder in the symbolic arrest staged by Congress leaders following Rahul Gandhi's detention in the afternoon.