Uttar Pradesh: Congress sacks 11 leaders for defying Priyanka Gandhi

LUCKNOW: The Congress party decided to let go of 11 rebel leaders here, on Sunday. The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) leaders had opposed general secretary Priyanka Gandhi's attempts to revamp the party in UP. They opposed the appointment of Ajay Kumar Lallu as the UP unit chief.

The 10 members expelled include former state ministers Ramkrishna Dwivedi and Satyadev Tripathi, former MLC Siraj Mehandi, former MLAs Bhudhar Narayan Mishra, Vinod Chaudhary and Nek Chandra Pandey, former state president of the Youth Congress Prakash Goswami and ex-president of the Gorakhpur district Sanjeev Singh. Among them was Santosh Singh - one of the representatives in AICC from UP. The party veterans have been accused of openly criticising the decisions taken by the top leadership to revamp the UPCC by holding separate meetings and indulging in media interactions that hurt the image of the Congress party. They were served an indiscipline notice before expelling them.

The leaders opposed appointing Lallu as the chief as they felt their "decades of hard work and seniority were overlooked" iby doing so. The leaders stated that they considered Lallu "too junior and inexperienced". The seniors stated that they are being disrespected and ignored by the new team and said the party's decision to expel seniors would send out a wrong message about the party. The leaders will be jointly holding a press conference in Lucknow today.

The seniors are expected to seek time from Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi and discuss the issue with her. Unhappy with the exclusion of old-timers from UPCC, many party leaders including former MPs and MLAs also boycotted the meeting called at the state headquarters in Lucknow on Wednesday.