The sermons by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and the warnings by AICC general secretary in charge of UP affairs Madhusudan Mistry have not had the desired impact on Congressmen in Uttar Pradesh as factionalism continues to rule the roost in the state.
The clash between supporters of union minister Beni Prasad Varma and Congress MP P.L. Punia in Barabanki that left 12 injured, is a reflection of the state of affairs within the Congress.
A similar situation had been witnessed during the Lok Sabha elections when the supporters of the two leaders had clashed during a press conference.
A few days ago, supporters and detractors of former UPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi had clashed in the presence of Mr Mistry and UPCC president Nirmal Khatri during a meeting. The two leaders had to intervene to prevent the situation from taking an ugly turn.
In Kanpur, the hostilities between union minister Shri Prakash Jaiswal and Congress MLA Ajay Kapoor have already acquired legendary proportions and the two leaders are rarely seen together at party functions.
Similarly, there is little love lost between union minister Jitin Prasada and Congress MP Zafar Ali Naqvi even though their constituencies share a common boundary.
The war between former UPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi and former CLP leader Pramod Tiwari had intensified to such an extent that both lost their positions in the party.
The war continues.
A veteran party leader, on condition of anonymity, said that these divisions between leaders, that had now percolated down to the block-level leadership and the workers at grassroots level, owed allegiance to various factions and not to the party as a whole.
“In this situation, how can you expect the party cadres to work for the success of the Congress? If one section of party workers is supporting a particular candidate, rest assured that another is opposing him. As UPCC president, I have seen this from close quarters and have even informed the party high command about this,” said a former state Congress president.