3 Congress councillors, office-bearers undecided on support to nominee in Chandigarh

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, April 30

Three MC councillors and several office-bearers of the city Congress remained undecided on supporting the party’s candidate for city LS seat Manish Tewari during a meeting today.

The councillors and office-bearers announced that they would hold a workers’ convention on May 5, which, they claim, would be attended by around 2,500 Congress men. Their views will be sought, following which a final decision regarding support to Tewari would be taken.

Sources said the disgruntled leaders wanted the party high command to appoint a working president. The leaders said they were not against Tewari’s candidature but local party president HS Lucky. However, they also resolved that they were not going to resign from party posts anymore, but would impress upon the party to hear out former MP Pawan Kumar Bansal and other disgruntled leaders, then only they would offer their wholehearted support to the ongoing campaigning.

Final decision after next meeting

The councillors and office-bearers announced that they would hold a workers’ convention on May 5, which, they claim, would be attended by around 2,500 Congress men. Their views will be sought, following which a final decision regarding support to Tewari would be taken.

Today’s meeting of all disgruntled leaders was held under the chairmanship of Congress councillor Gurpreet Singh Gabi at Shaheed Udham Singh Bhawan, Sector 44. They claimed about 200-250 Congress men attended the meeting.

They included councillors Gabi and Sachin Galav, Dilwar Singh, on behalf of his wife and councillor Niramla Devi. According to Gabi, Congress vice-presidents, general secretary, secretary and vice-president of the Youth Congress; district head, general secretary, secretary, ward head and NSUI president and team were also present at the meeting.

President of NSUI Sachin Galav said workers of the Youth Congress were being ignored.

Youth Congress vice-president Deepak Lubana and his state team, district presidents and ward presidents were not even taken into confidence due to which the party’s election campaign was not gaining momentum.

Dilawar Singh and party’s general secretary Luv Kumar said their protest was not against Tewari, but they opposed the way the workers were being ignored and outsiders alloed to interfere.

Gabi said after listening to everyone’s views, it had become clear that workers’ anguish was due to the interference of outsiders and neglect by the party.