Sonia Gandhi junks Rahul Gandhi's diktat to UP party unit

LUCKNOW: Overruling Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's diktat to Uttar Pradesh Congress to prune the size of its executive committee by half, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's office has cleared an enormous 402-member state executive.

Rahul had turned down the proposal for the mammoth executive when it was sent to him earlier by Uttar Pradesh PCC chief Nirmal Khatri. In a note to Khatri, he had asked him to cut the executive by half, not exceeding more than 250 members.

Khatri then sent a pruned list of office bearers and executive committee members. But Sonia's office overrode Rahul's objections and approved the original list.

UP PCC made the announcement on Tuesday . Rahul had asserted earlier that he was not in favour of creating large, unwieldy groups in the name of state executives. But the new UP PCC list has: 34 vice-presidents, 64 general secretaries, 43 orga nizing secretaries, 107 secretaries, 84 executive committee members and 69 permanent invitee members.

Besides, Khatri holds the president's post and Harish Bajpai is treasurer. A 26member communication department was also announced on Wednesday. This is the largest-ever executive in UP PCC's history.The last executive, which was dissolved eight months ago, had 288 members.

The PCC attempts to reach out to all castes and communities. Khatri chose 81 Brahmins, 43 Thakurs, 61 OBCs, 55 Muslims, 52 Dalits and two tribals; 35 women have been included.

Justifying the list, freshly-appointed in-charge of the communication unit, VN Madan, said, “UP is a very large state. To orchestrate the revival of the party , we needed to create an all-inclusive group spanning all castes and religions.“ In a twist, two functionaries, Amir Haidar and Siraj Wali Khan, quit soon after their names figured in the list as secretary and executive member.