National
Cong. accommodates many Satpal Maharaj nominees
By Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, JAN. 22. The Congress today mollified the disgruntled Uttaranchal leader, Satpal Maharaj, by accommodating a number of his supporters, including his wife, in its revised list of candidates. The party won him over by replacing five candidates, announced earlier, with candidates recommended by him.
According to an arrangement hammered out by senior party leader N.D. Tewari, and the AICC general secretary, Ghulam Nabi Azad with Mr. Maharaj, the party replaced its candidates in Pauri, Thalsain, Rudraprayag, Nand Prayag, and Karan Prayag. In its final list, it also allotted the Beeronkhal seat to Mr. Maharaj's wife, Amrita Rawat, and the Dhuma Khot seat to one of his supporters, T.P.S. Rawat.
A visibly pleased Mr. Maharaj changed tack and swore allegiance to the party. He told newspersons that he was ``sorry if his actions had distressed anybody'' and promised to work tirelessly to bring the Congress to power in the State.'' The Congress also released an additional list of the remaining 99 candidates for Uttar Pradesh. A prominent feature of the final list is the presence of Ammar Rizvi, Deputy Speaker of the U.P. Assembly. The high command had taken a very dim view of his election, which was facilitated by the BJP. Significantly, the party has decided to deny the ticket to its sitting MLA from Amethi, Ram Harak Singh, and has replaced him with Ashish Shukla. The move is considered significant not only because it is in Sonia Gandhi's constituency, but also because the BJP has decided to field Amita Singh. However, most of the other sitting MLAs like Mohd. Muslim and Akhilesh Singh have been renominated.
The list has its usual quota of relatives. The husband and wife team of Ashok Vajpayee and Ranjana Vajpayee has been nominated from Biswan and Allahabad. Shekhar Bahuguna, son of H. N. Bahuguna, Akhilesh Rakesh, Virendra Singh Bundela, brother of the party MP, Sujan Singh Bundela, have also been given the party ticket. However, the UPCC chief, S.P. Jaiswal, has failed in his bid to get a ticket for his brother from Kanpur. Like the previous list, the effort appears to have been to give adequate representation to most social groups.
The party held the BJP-led U.P. Government responsible for the all-round deterioration of the State. Mr. Jaiswal said the BJP was responsible for the ``economic bankruptcy, industrial and economic slowdown, pitiable condition of the farmers, atrocities against women, dalits and minorities and the pathetic law and order situation''.
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