The internal feud within the Congress party, which is reeling under severe crisis, has come to the fore with PC Chacko overturning Delhi Congress chief Shiela Dikshit’s decision to dissolve all 280 block-level committees.
Chacko, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Delhi overturned Dikshit’s decision on Saturday, June 29.
Dikshit, the former Chief Minister of Delhi and incumbent chief of the Congress Delhi unit had been called for a meeting with Rahul Gandhi on June 28, which was also attended by Chacko. Gandhi was reported to have advised both the veteran leaders to work together in the wake of assembly polls scheduled for early next year in Delhi.
Meanwhile, Dikshit, taking cognizance of a report by a committee formed by her to probe the party’s debacle in recent Lok Sabha polls, dissolved all the block committees hours after meeting Gandhi.
Congress had lost all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to BJP with huge margins.
According to party sources, Chacko resisted Dikshit’s stance to ‘stay’ the dissolution of block committees and forwarded copies of his order to party president Gandhi along with Dikshit.
Nevertheless, Chacko’s decision has come at a time when a delegation of senior party leaders protested against Dikshit’s move. The delegation consisting of leaders including Parvez Hashmi, Kiran Walia and Ramakant Goswami amongst others, reportedly met Congress general secretary (organization) KC Venugopal and Chacko on Saturday and disapproved Dikshit’s move to dissolve the block committees.
“We told the two leaders that block committees and their presidents were elected and they can not be dissolved all of a sudden before assembly elections since it takes a lot of time to form them,” said Chatar Singh, who was in the meeting.
The fissures re-appeared when the “anti-Dikshit group” claimed the block committees were dissolved “unilaterally” by her without consulting Chacko.
A senior Delhi Congress leader claimed, “The decision to disband the block committees formed under presidentship of Ajay Maken is an attempt by Dikshit to stamp her authority by reconstituting them under her leadership.”
The block committees were elected last year when Maken headed the Delhi Congress.
In hindsight, the differences between the two party leaders are not new. During the course of Lok Sabha elections when Chacko along with Maken had been pushing for an alliance with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Dikshit was the one who had strictly opposed the same.
