HPCC not recast, Congress workers ask Pratibha to quit

The delay in the reconstitution of the dissolved Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) has seemingly pushed the party workers to the end of their patience. The growing frustration in the rank and file of the party became evident at a meeting in Bilaspur on Thursday, where party workers openly vented their frustration over several issues, including the delay in the reconstitution of the HPCC, in the presence of state Congress president Pratibha Singh. They reportedly also asked Pratibha to resign if she was not heard on the issue.

“It’s been nearly six months since the high command dissolved the HPCC. Party workers and several leaders are frustrated over the inordinate delay in the reconstitution of the HPCC. The central leadership should form the committees without further delay,” said a senior Congress leader.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri and Pratibha are in New Delhi today to attend the Congress Working Committee meeting. Given what happened in Bilaspur, all these leaders and the central leadership will feel an added pressure to remove whatever hurdles are there in the way reviving the HPCC.

Besides two local factions of the party raising slogans against each other in the Bilaspur meeting, party workers also questioned how would the party function without an organisation? So angry were the workers and some local leaders that they even suggested that the HPCC president should resign if she wasn’t heard on the issue of the reconstitution of the HPCC.

Some workers seemed equally upset with the government. Their grouse was that turncoats were being accommodated in the Board of Directors of various corporations and boards. “They complained that party-hoppers were being given preference over committed party workers in the Board of Directors of corporations and boards,” said a party leader.

The workers from the minority committee also expressed their grouse over the handling of the controversial mosque issue in Shimla by the party and the government, pointing towards the role of two ministers in the matter.

On the evidence of what happened in the Bilaspur meeting, Congress leaders and workers say that any further delay in the naming the new body will prove detrimental to the interests of the party in the state.

Himachal Tribune