By IANS,
Raipur : At least half a dozen leaders of the Congress party, which is out of the power in Chhattisgarh since November 2003, are lobbying hard for the post of the party’s state unit president.
Party sources say that former minister Nandkumar Patel and Renu Jogi, wife of senior Congress leader and former chief minister Ajit Jogi, are the front runners for the post.
The incumbent state unkit chief Dhanendra Sahu is also trying his best in New Delhi to convince the party high command that he should be given one more chance to stem the rising factionalism in Chhattisgarh.
The Jogi faction and the camps separately led by Congress treasurer Motilal Vora, former union minister Vidya Charan Shukla and leader of opposition Ravindra Choubey have already explained their view points to the central leadership on how the party needs to be overhauled to make a comeback in the state where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in late 2003.
“We expect the announcement of a new Congress president for Chhattisgarh by the month-end or in April. The party workers are inactive since 2008 when Sahu was appointed state chief,” a former minister and senior Congress leader told IANS Monday, requesting anonymity.
According to him, Sahu failed to take various factions together. “In fact, he proved to be a burden to the party,” he said.
The former minister also said that the high command may go in for a surprise face ignoring the choices suggested by senior leaders who have track record of stoking up intra-party rivalry.
Party sources said the high-command is looking beyond Sahu and wants to bring a leader either from other backward classes (OBC), which make up nearly 50 percent of state’s 20.08 million population, or from the tribal community that has roughly 32 percent population.
The Congress has 39 members in the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly and has only one Lok Sabha member out of the total 11 from the state.
There has been widespread criticism against the party’s senior state leaders who are divided into various groups and sub-groups.
In the February by-poll from Durg district’s Sanjari Balod constituency, Jogi had pulled out from the party campaign due to an open rift with the state unit president, Sahu.
The Congress lost the seat by 9,500 votes.