MP: Congress Veterans Slams State Party Leadership for Giving Short Shrift

Bhopal: Fissures in the beleaguered Congress in Madhya Pradesh have come to the fore with some veteran leaders hitting out at the state Congress president Jitu Patwari for giving them short shrift in the party affairs.

Former chief minister Kamal Nath severely criticized Mr Patwari for not being consulted in party matters and even not being informed about the scheduled meetings of the party in advance.

He was addressing the political affairs committee (PAC) of the state party, held virtually on Monday evening.

Another Congress veteran and former chief minister Digvijay Singh and former MP Meenakshi Natarajan who had also participated in the meeting virtually supported Mr Nath.

“Even the agenda of the crucial meeting of the party bodies are not intimated to the members in advance”, one of them said.

The PAC was convened to discuss the preparations for the ‘Save Constitution’ rally, scheduled to be organized by the party in Mhow in Indore district on January 26.

Sources said that Mr Patwari came under attack by the senior party leaders several times in the past for allegedly slighting them by not taking them into confidence in the appointment of new office bearers and other important policy matters of the party.

The issue was also taken to the AICC leadership, sources said.

Following this, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has recently asked Mr Patwari to take all sections of leaders along with him, sources said.

Incidentally, Mr Patwari recently had to make a U-turn by withdrawing the list of new spokespersons of the party following strong resentment expressed by some senior party leaders for not accommodating their loyalists in the list.