Mission ‘half accomplished’ for Congress factions

NAGPUR: On Day 2 of the ongoing political duel in the national capital between the Vilas Muttemwar and Satish Chaturvedi groups, workers of both the Congress factions came face to face. This happened when both the teams separately went to meet veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Muttemwar himself was leading his team on Wednesday, while his protege Vikas Thakre was in the background. Chaturvedi’s delegation was led by ex-MP Gev Awari and was much stronger with around 60 members, while the other faction had only half the strength.

Chaturvedi group once again insisted on conducting free and fair internal election of Nagpur District Congress Committee which city president Thakre was avoiding. Muttemwar harped on indisciplinary actions of Chaturvedi, sitting MLA Sunil Kedar, and ex-MLA Ashok Dhawad.

At the end of the day, neither of the groups could meet party president Rahul Gandhi, who was busy preparing for Singapore-Malaysia tour where he is to drum up the support of NRIs for the Congress.

The 36-member Muttemwar team had air-dashed to Delhi two days ago and will be flying back on Thursday. They had been put up in a tony hotel in the capital. The Chaturvedi gang, which travelled by train on Sunday night, was put up at Maharashtra Sadan and took a train back on Wednesday evening.

Both the teams felt that their mission was half accomplished as they couldn’t meet Rahul Gandhi. With no signs of rancour dissipating, the Chaturvedi group is now questioning who sponsored Muttemwar group’s Delhi tour.