Dissidents can dim Cong chances

NEW DELHI: It is the night of reckoning for the state Congress unit.
Grappling with dissidence - six "official'' dissidents have already filed their nominations as independents from various constituencies and several others have reportedly fielded their own candidates - Thursday night was the last opportunity the party had to deal with the problem. And with none of the dissidents agreeing to concede even an inch over the last two days - all of them have asserted that they are in the fray for good come what may - there were some perceptible signs of tension in the Congress camp even though the state president put up a brave face.
"We are working on them (dissidents) and are hopeful that by tomorrow all the five-six people would come round to accepting the party's candidate and working for that person,'' said DPCC president J P Agarwal.Is he worried about the talks not bearing any fruit so far? "Not at all. By three tomorrow all of them will have withdrawn. The question of disciplinary action does not arise at all because it will not be necessary,'' he said. He concedes that the party is in a precarious position in "8-10 seats'' but will not comment on whether these include the five seats where the party's own men have emerged as its enemies.
Party sources however say the alarm bells have already started ringing. Among the party workers who have filed nominations as independent candidates are former mayor Satbir Singh from Mehrauli, Dulichand Lohia from Rajouri Garden, Bir Singh (who is fighting on an NCP ticket), Haneef Mohammed from Sangam Vihar, Ajit Chaddha from Tilak Nagar and Ramesh Dutta from Matia Mahal. In Mehrauli the Congress candidate is health minister Yoganand Shastri who had to make way for Kiran Walia in his original constituency Malviya Nagar, in Rajouri Garden Dayanand Chandela, who broke away from BJP, days before the elections were announced has been fielded, in Tilak Nagar Anita Babbar is the Congress candidate and in Matia Mahal Mahmood Zia has been given the party ticket.
While all of them are expected to face some problems if the dissidents do not agree to withdraw, the worst sufferer, party insiders are apprehensive, may just be former IPS officer Amod Kanth who is fighting from Sangam Vihar on a party ticket and has to contend with a two-fold reduction of votes by two independents.
"There is a common feature in all these seats. Because of one consideration or another a candidate has been foisted on the local Congress unit by the party high command when the truly democratic way of selecting a candidate should be meeting local party workers. Even before the campaigning has started, Congress' very way of functioning has become a booby trap for it,'' said a party office-bearer. In fact, while some amount of ill-will is normal in any political party immediately after distribution of tickets, dual combination of denial of tickets to sitting MLAs and the juggling around of candidates to accommodate those whose constituencies have been deleted has created unforeseen problems for the state Congress.
Party insiders say that the other seats where there are no `independent' dissidents yet dissidence of workers or displeasure of top leaders over the choice of candidate may end up in a Congress defeat include Rajinder Nagar, Harinagar, Wazirpur, Kirari, Burari, Trilokpuri, Patel Nagar, Sadar Bazaar and Kasturba Nagar.