Dumped Congress leaders star in campaign

Sajjan Kumar, the Congress stalwart from outer Delhi had been requested to campaign for Pandit Deep Chand Sharma, who is considered to be a weak candidate. In fact during the campaign Pandit Deep Chand barely says a sentence or two before Sajjan Kuamr takes over and urges the electorate to vote for the Congress.

M.M. Aggarwal, the lightweightCongress candidate from Sadar, too is banking heavily on Jagdish Tytler. And though Tytler is moving around with a chip on his shoulder he is putting in a word for Aggarwal.

These dumped’ leaders are emerging as the main crowd-pullers on the party’s campaign trail. In fact, the Delhi Pradesh President of the Congress, Prem Singh has been repeatedly saying that had Tytler, Bhagat and Sajjan contested the seats would have been surely won by the Congress. But that brings little comfort to either the leaders or their supporters.

Thus the supporters of the three discarded Delhi stalwarts are a disgruntled lot. “First of all there is no charge against Tytler at all. Secondly, the other leaders Bhagat and Sajjan have been convicted by court. So the party had no business to cut their tickets and that too for a handful of votes which may or may not come,” says a Sajjan supporter.

Anyway, if they have images are tarnished and may cut the votes then why is the party begging them to canvass for Congresscandidates. “The Congress high-command is indulging in double-speak,” thunders a Tytler supporter.The dissent was brought to the notice of the DPCC leaders and “all they told us was that they were helpless. The AICC did not know the ground realities and therefore the Delhi Pradesh had requested the three leaders informally to campaign and improve the party’s situation till Sonia Gandhi takes over,” one of the supporters told Express Newsline.

Bhagat is taking over the Shiela Dikshit campaign especially in the jhuggi-jhopari and unauthorised colony belt, which forms a sizable electorate in the east Delhi constituency. The discarded leaders are canvassing for the Congress candidates but their large number of supporters are not. They fear that they will fade into oblivion. They also fear that the party candidates will promote their own set of supporters if they win.Choudhary Prem Singh, defending the canvassing by the three leaders says: “Whatever the party high-command decision, Bhagat,Tytler and Sajjan continue to be members of the Congress party and there is no law against Congressmen campaigning for the party. ”