Cong workers resort to arson over tickets
The widespread resentment among Congress workers in Bihar over allocation of party tickets for the Assembly polls took violent turns in several districts across the state on Sunday, forcing the national party’s leaders to begin a rethink and assess the extent of damage possible from such bitterness.
A day after manhandling Bihar Congress president Mehboob Ali Kaiser and Congress legislative party leader Ashok Ram in Patna, workers resorted to vandalism and arson at the party’s offices in far-flung corners of the state. A part of the Purnea district Congress office was set afire by angry workers who alleged the party “simply sold the tickets,” while in Sasaram the workers burnt effigies of Lok Sabha Speaker and local MP Meira Kumar to protest allocation of a ticket to her relative.
In Madhubani, hundreds of slogan-shouting Congress workers vandalised the district office of the party and held the party’s national spokesman and local leader Shakil Ahmed Khan as responsible for the allotment of tickets to “unworthy candidates” at the cost of dedicated, long-time leaders. Similar scenes were seen at the Congress offices in Supaul district on Sunday.
The Congress’ state headquarters in Patna’s Sadaqat Ashram has been under a virtual seize by hundreds of incensed workers who have been camping there for over four days demanding that the party change its candidates in scores of Assembly constituencies.
Policemen holding lathis are currently deployed at Sadaqat Ashram to tackle eventualities.
Mukul Wasnik, the Congress’ Bihar in-charge, and state chief Kaiser were mostly being targeted by unhappy workers across the state, who, however, have been praising party chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi during all such protests.
“We are aware of the developing situation. The way some workers created unseemly scenes at the Patna airport was patently wrong. That was no way to raise issues and express displeasure. We are monitoring the whole scenario,” said Bihar Congress spokesman Premchand Mishra.
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