Sonia

New Delhi, May 17: Sonia Gandhi has made it clear she will not tolerate factionalism in the next lot of states going to polls later this year.

The Congress chief made her point “subtly but firmly” to two senior leaders from one such state, Chhattisgarh, when they called on her yesterday. Sonia told Motilal Vora and V.C. Shukla that if the leaders did not fight the polls as one army, the perceived “anti-incumbency wave” against the BJP government might not help the Congress that much.

Congress sources said the context was the apparent regrouping of the upper-caste lobby (Vora and Shukla are Brahmins) against former chief minister Ajit Jogi.

Although Jogi is confined to a wheelchair after an accident in 2003 and is entangled in criminal cases involving him and son Amit, he has reinforced his “importance” in Chhattisgarh politics on numerous occasions.

He got wife Renu elected MLA in a bypoll and stalled the revamp of the state Congress unit, reducing the incumbent chief to a figurehead.

Sources said Vora and Shukla found an “opportune” moment to strike after the Supreme Court last Wednesday admitted a special leave petition filed by the Chhattisgarh government, accusing Jogi of possessing a fraudulent certificate to claim Scheduled Tribe status.

In 2006, the high court had cleared Jogi and it was assumed that he was out of the woods. “Just when he was again getting pro-active, the Brahmin lobby tried to retaliate. But it seems the Congress president will not allow things to go out of hand,” said a source.

Sonia is likely to send across the unity message at meetings she will address when she visits Chhattisgarh in June.

The unity message follows the Congress’s experience in the run-up to the Karnataka elections. Sonia had staved off a near-revolt by veteran leader C.K. Jaffer Sharief when a relative was denied a ticket and placated a sulking Margaret Alva, who, too, had hoped her son would be “rewarded” with one.

Others in the top-heavy Karnataka Congress were accused by district leaders of functioning like Delhi’s “handmaidens” and “stifling local aspirations”.

“We don’t want the Karnataka experience to be repeated in other poll-bound states,” a source said.

In Madhya Pradesh, which like Karnataka has “more leaders than workers”, as a source put it, the “high command” would prefer the old guard to give way to a new lot.

“Arjun Singh should take the hint. Now that his son Ajay has got an important role in the organisation, Arjun Singh will be expected not to meddle in state politics,” a functionary said.