'Caste' list leaves Cong red-faced
13 Jan 2010, 0517 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: An embarrassed Congress was on Tuesday forced to distance
itself from a massive list of Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC)
office
bearers parts of which surfaced in the media with caste names written
against the names of new members. The list of new BPCC office bearers
which runs into the hundreds also contains another big blooper. It
designates Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar as a permanent invitee and
mentions the caste of the Dalit leader along side her name.
The use of the Dalit caste name invited a sharp rebuke from the
Opposition BJP and raised the prospect of a legal tangle for the BPCC
as the matter could be pursued in court.
Top Congress sources said party chief Sonia Gandhi indicated that she
had no knowledge of the existence of such a list, even as the party
itself remained tightlipped about the issue officially. Of the record,
Congress leaders admitted to a "major goof up" at the state level with
the blame resting at the doorstep of the AICC in-charge of the state,
Jagdish Tytler, and PCC chief Anil Sharma.
"The list (with the caste names) was an internal document. It should
have been sent to the AICC for a final clearance from where it would
have been forwarded to the Congress president. This last step was
ignored by those in charge of the state," a senior Congress leader
said explaining the surfacing of the document. Mr Tytler, however,
blamed the media for having "stolen" an "internal Congress document".
Incidentally, the party did the same thing ahead of the 2005 Assembly
elections. The BPCC released a candidates list of 41 names along with
their castes. Then BPCC chief Sadanand Singh had called it a "lapse"
just as it is being described by the central congress leadership now.
The matter could become tricky for Congress as rival parties have
pounced on the opportunity to question the Congress' brand of
politics. "The Congress in-charge of Bihar wants to push the state
back further by attempting to divide it on caste lines," BJP
spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said calling it an "unconstitutional"
list.
Meanwhile, Ms Kumar said, "I belong to a political party. As a
Speaker, I believe in strict neutrality of the chair." Congress,
however, justified her inclusion in the list holding that there was no
strict rule against the Speaker taking up a party post though such a
convention did exist.
Meanwhile, a section of the Bihar leaders have launched a signature
campaign against the jumbo size PCC and the use of caste names. They
are also expected to apprise the party high command of the
developments.
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