Infighting in Chandigarh Congress resurfaces

By Rajesh Ahuja

CHANDIGARH, AUG. 25. Even as the stalemate over the ``missing'' 38 membership forms submitted on behalf of the former All-India Youth Congress president, Mr. Manish Tewari, appeared to be heading towards a resolution following intervention by two All- India Congress Committee observers, Mr. Y. Chaurasia and Mr. Mahabir Bairagi,rampant infighting in the Chandigarh unit of the party reared its head before them on Wednesday.

The organisational elections are to be held on November 1. However, the scrutiny committee after several meetings reached a ``deadlock'' over the `missing' 38 forms and the matter was referred to the high command which responded by sending Mr. Chaurasia and Mr. Bairagi to Chandigarh on Wednesday.

The two held meetings with the senior leaders of the party. They participated in a special meeting of the Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday. After listening to the ``grievances'' voiced by two members, Mr. Sunil Parti and Mr. Chandermukhi Sharma, who heads the city unit of the Youth Congress, regarding ``bogus membership and misuse of the money collected during the membership drive'', the two observers ruled that the members whose forms were ``missing'' would be duly enrolled and a new draft roll of primary and active members would be published.

Following objections over the procedural irregularities, they said that final concurrence would be obtained from Mr. Tewari to sort out the matter.

On Mr. Parti's objection regarding the alleged misuse of the entire amount collected during the enrollment drive, members close to the CTCC chief, Mr. B. B. Bahl, claimed that the money had been spent after informing the AICC general secretary, Mr. Moti Lal Vora, and the chairman of the State Election Authority, Mr. Harikesh Bahadur.

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