‘Congress should introspect’: UP leader who once worked closely with Rahul Gandhi refuses to be Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s adviser

The dissidence in the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Congress party seems to be out in public just days after Ajay Kumar Lallu was made party’s state unit chief. Senior Congress leader and former MP from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajesh Mishra has now turned down the post of member of the advisory council to party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

According to the reports, the AICC after appointing Lallu as Uttar Pradesh Congress chief had constituted the state Congress Committee to accommodate other senior leaders. Eighteen senior party leaders, including former Union ministers and former MPs, have been inducted in the newly formed advisory council.

However, the signs of dissent is now visible after Uttar Pradesh Congress leader Rajesh Mishra, who once worked very closely with former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, declined to be an adviser to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and said he was “just a worker” and that he did not “have the stature to advise someone”.

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Reportedly, Rajesh Misra also said that the party needs to “introspect” in the current political situation. Asked if he was unhappy with the new Uttar Pradesh party-state executive, Mishra, a former MP from Varanasi said that the decision was the internal matter of the party. “If Priyanka ji or Rahul Gandhi ask me, I will tell them about my views,” said Mishra

“In the present political scenario, Congress should introspect. The party should promote ground-level workers and hardworking and devoted Congressmen,” he said.

Rajesh Mishra also added that he had no issues with the party, but said that many within the party feel that there should have been a “balance of the old and young in the committee made for the revival of the party”.

“There is a lot of work which is required on the ground. In the new committee, a majority of members are below 40-45 years of age. It has been a tradition of Congress that it takes everyone along; be it junior or senior, be it of any caste or creed. But if a committee is formed with one criterion and then there is Youth Congress also, what would be the criteria for the main party,” Mishra said.

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