Congress's Rajya Sabha List Spurs More Dissent With "Outsiders" Charge

The Congress list of Rajya Sabha candidates has caused massive resentment in the ranks, especially among the "dissenters" and those left out.

Sources close to the G-23 or Group of 23 "dissenters" in the Congress have raised many questions about the choice of candidates for the upper house of parliament. The party has chosen "outsiders" in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the two states where it is in power.

Rajeev Shukla, Ajay Maken, and Jairam Ramesh have been named from Chhattisgarh, Haryana, and Karnataka in the list of 10 candidates from seven states for the Rajya Sabha polls on June 10.

P Chidambaram, who is in Rajya Sabha, has once again been named from Tamil Nadu and Ranjeet Ranjan has been fielded from Chhattisgarh. Vivek Tankha is the Congress candidate from Madhya Pradesh.

But Uttar Pradesh, a state with just two Congress MLAs, has three party representatives, the dissenters point out; two are from the same district- Pramod Tiwari and Imran Pratapgarhi.

Imran Pratapgarhi, the Congress minority department chairperson and a poet, has been fielded from Maharashtra.

An outsider was also named from Haryana, the rebels say, though Kumari Selja, a Dalit leader, could have been chosen.

"Whatever happened to the Udaipur 'Chintan Shivir' resolve to have better representation for Dalits and women," a Congress leader questioned.

Many leaders have questioned why there is no strategic representation from states where elections will be held this year and the next.

The party yesterday announced 10 candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections, skipping many prominent leaders.

Randeep Singh Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari are candidates representing Rajasthan though none belong to the state.

A Congress MLA, Sanyam Lodha, said the party would have to explain why no one was nominated from Rajasthan. "The Congress party should tell what is the reason for not making any Congress leader/worker from Rajasthan, a candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections," he wrote in a tweet on Sunday.

Rajasthan BJP chief Satish Poonia also took a swipe with a tweet - "Congress's Chintan Shivir took place in Rajasthan. Now look at another achievement of this thinking. Observe the quota of local candidates....without 'local' who will be 'vocal'..?"

Pawan Kheda, who is from Rajasthan, was widely seen as a shoo-in from the Congress but he was not on the Rajya Sabha list either. "Maybe there is something missing in my penance," he tweeted this morning. As the BJP seized his post to target the Congress, Mr Kheda toned down his criticism and said the Congress has given him his identity. "I am not only in agreement with this view of mine but also stand by it," he said, tagging one of his tweets a few days ago in which he had said Congress leaders must not forget that their identity was because of the party.

Responding to Mr Kheda's initial tweet, however, Congress leader Nagma wrote, "Our 18 years of penance also fell short in front of Imran Bhai."

She also posted: "Sonia Ji, our Congress president, had personally committed to accommodating me in Rajya Sabha in 2003/04. When I joined the Congress party on her behest we weren't in power then. Since then, it's been 18 years, they didn't find an opportunity. Mr Imran is accommodated in RS from Maha. I ask, am I less deserving?"

That caused a ripple, with another Congress leader joining in.

Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam, responding to Nagma, wrote that the "penance" of Salman Khurshid, Tariq Anwar and Ghulam Nabi Azad was of over 40 years, but they too were "martyred".

"'Suppression of talent is a 'suicidal step' for the party," he tweeted in Hindi.