While one group wants state party president Ajoy Kumar removed, the other wants him to stay.
New Delhi: The Congress in Jharkhand is going through tumultuous times, with the party in the state divided into two groups. Assembly polls in Jharkhand will be held in less than five months.
While one group wants the removal of state party president Ajoy Kumar, who they have accused of decimating the party in the state, the other group believes that Kumar is the right man to lead the party in the state as, according to them, the party has increased its acceptability among the voters under his leadership.
While the demand for replacing Ajoy Kumar was being made by top party leaders of the state even before the May Lok Sabha elections, on account of Kumar allegedly sidelining senior leaders, it has gathered more steam after the Congress’ poor show in the state, with senior leaders, who were earlier only sharing their grievances among themselves, now coming out in the open to seek Kumar’s ouster.
These senior leaders, who include former Union minister Subodh Kant Sahay, former MP from Dhanbad and labour union leader, Chandrashekhar Dubey, former MP from Godda, Furkan Ansari, former state president and MP Pradeep Balmuchu and former Central minister and ex-IPS official Rameshwar Oraon, among others, have sent representations to the party high command, seeking Kumar’s replacement. Some of them, including Sahai and Dubey, have come to Delhi multiple times and shared their representations to remove Kumar with the party functionaries, including party general secretary K.C. Venugopal and party veteran Ahmed Patel, who are looking after the party affairs for the last two months.
Ajoy Kumar, a former IPS officer, who was also an MP from Jamshedpur, was appointed as the state president in November 2017 just a few months after former Union minister R.P.N. Singh was made the party in-charge of Jharkhand in July 2017.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Chandrashekhar Dubey said that every senior state leader was in favour of Ajoy being removed. “He has taken the party to a very low level; I don’t know how he is being allowed to continue till now. We believe he is working with the BJP; only recently, he told the party workers that they should learn ‘sanskar’ from BJP leaders. For the last one-and-a-half year, we have been trying to meet Rahul Gandhi over this issue, but he is not meeting any leaders from Jharkhand as the party in-charge R.P.N. Singh, who is in cahoots with Kumar, has given a wrong picture about us to Rahulji. Singh is more responsible for this mess as he is in charge of the party’s affairs. You speak to any senior leader including Subodh Sahai, Pradeep Balmuchu, Furkan Ansari, Rameshwar Oraon; all of them will tell you the same thing—that Kumar needs to be replaced,” he said.
Party Rajya Sabha MP from the state, Dhiraj Sahu, said that there was a lot of anger against Kumar, but the decision whether to change Kumar or not, has to be taken by the high command.
“The high command will decide this issue. No one can deny that there is a lot of anger against Kumar (within the party workers). I have never seen such level of anger (against a leader) in my life. I am not going to take names, but the ticket distribution was done very wrongly. Senior party leaders were not consulted before finalising the tickets. The post of the state party president is not a permanent job; if the leader in the position has not performed, he should be changed, there is nothing wrong in that,” Sahu told The Sunday Guardian.
Party leaders who support Kumar said that he was being targeted because he did not succumb to the pressure of giving tickets to the kith and kin of senior state leaders.
A senior Ranchi-based party functionary said: “The basic issue is that they did not get the ticket and hence they want Kumar to be replaced. Their charges are ridiculous. Under Kumar’s leadership, we won one seat, lost one by 1,000 votes. We have increased our vote share in the seven seats we contested—in 2014, we got 13.5% votes, in 2019, it increased to 15.63%. The activities of these leaders have weakened the party. They had done the same thing with the previous two state presidents—Sukhdev Bhagat and Pradeep Balmuchu. They are now attacking Kumar. These leaders want to capture the party and the organisation; this cannot be allowed to happen. Initially, Kumar tried his best to take them along, but how long can one try if the other person does not want to cooperate? The senior leaders who are against Ajoy Kumar wanted an alliance, but not on their own seats and even in this challenging scenario Kumar was able to stitch an alliance in the state. One should also remember that Lok Sabha candidates are not chosen or rejected by the state president alone. There is a whole process that goes into it, there is a committee that decides it.”
Subodh Kant Sahay, who is camping in Delhi, said that Kumar was not in sync with the party’s ideology: “Ajoy Kumar has got the post, but he has no ideology. Earlier, he was in Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM), but now he has joined Congress, he has no commitment towards the party’s ideology.”
These senior leaders who are pushing for the removal of Kumar and R.P.N. Singh—both considered to be chosen by Rahul Gandhi—said they are not going to turn rebels.
Chandrashekhar Dubey said: “We made the Congress, gave 40 years to the party. We will not leave Congress, we will stand with Rahulji, Soniaji and Priyankaji. We are not going to turn rebels. We just want these two individuals to be replaced.”
The clash of egos in the state has led to confusion among not just party workers, but has led to confusion among the Congress’ allies like Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), as no talks regarding seat distribution for the Assembly elections has begun till now.
Congress leaders feel that in view of the present situation in the state, the JMM will look to assert itself more strongly in the state to leverage a weakened Congress.