A comical development is occurring within the Congress party. A day before Gita Jayanti, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi met President Kovind and claimed to have submitted a memorandum with 2 crore signatures seeking his intervention on the matter of newly passed farm laws. There appears to be a minor issue with the signature campaign, however.
New Delhi: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Ghulam Nabi Azad & Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury met the President earlier today & submitted a memorandum containing 2 crore signatures seeking his intervention in farm laws issue. pic.twitter.com/Sqy6xdhNzw
— ANI (@ANI) December 24, 2020
Jagran has reported that Congress leaders in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar have no idea how the campaign was run, when it begun and when it ended or where the signatures came from. There was no coordination between different units of the party either but, somehow, against all odds, the party managed to conjure 2 crore signatures against farm laws.
The story in Bihar
State leaders in Bihar do not seem to know much about the signature campaign. Madan Mohan Jha, Bihar Congress President, said that the campaign was launched some time ago but then, the Assembly Elections occurred and the growth of the campaign was stalled. According to Jagran, he did not appear to know much else, including when the campaign began and ended.
Ajeet Sharma, leader of the party in the Assembly, said that such a campaign never even happened. Spokesperson Rajesh Rathod insisted that the campaign went on for a long time but he, too, could not provide specific information regarding the duration of the campaign.
Nobody could answer who precisely submitted the collected signatures to the national Congress leadership at Delhi or when was it submitted. When pressed for more information, Rathod said that he will provide answers once he has more knowledge of the matter.
The story in Haryana
The story was pretty similar in Haryana. Neither or citizens of Congress karyakartas appeared to be aware of when the signature campaign took place. Jagran reports that the Congress party managed to fill entire trucks with bundles of signatures. But where the bundles of signatures came from, Congress does not appear to have an answer to that. In fact, Congress workers in Haryana are themselves astonished as to when and how the signatures were collected.
Meanwhile, the organizational structure of the party is in complete disarray according to Jagran and nobody was willing to comment on the support lent to the campaign by former CM Bhupendra Singh Hooda and his supporters. Units of the party such Mahila Congress, Youth Congress or NSUI were not seen in any prominent role either.
Signature Campaign in Yogi’s UP
Jagran reported that of the 2 crore signatures submitted to President Kovind, 50 lakh were from Uttar Pradesh. And all of this was achieved without any visible campaign on the ground and without support from even the different units of the party. Kisan Congress, for instances, had no clue about the signature campaign.
Spokesperson Brijendra Kumar Singh said that the Youth Congress must have conducted signature campaign and he needed to confirm the information before conveying it. Kanishk Pandey, president Youth Congress eastern zone, said that Youth Congress did not participate in the campaign and the state unit of the Congress party must have run it.
Another Congress spokesperson took about one and a half to come back with some information. The campaign apparently took place from August to November. Kisan Congress leader Tarun Patel, however, denied having any knowledge of it. Another Kisan leader did acknowledge the signature campaign but had no idea how many signatures were collected. In the end, the person compiling the data said that the signatures were meant to be submitted before Diwali but were being submitted now.
