Sonia Gandhi with Margaret Alva at an election rally in 2006. File picture

New Delhi, Nov. 12: Margaret Alva was today dropped from the Congress Working Committee and the party’s central election panel over her cash-for-tickets allegations.

Alva, whose resignation as general secretary has also been accepted, is believed to be considering plans to quit the party. There is speculation that she is looking at joining the Nationalist Congress Party as she has always referred to NCP chief Sharad Pawar as a brother.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi dropped the 66-year-old leader from the two most important policy-making bodies of the Congress and, by accepting Alva’s resignation as general secretary, has virtually shown her the door.

The crackdown was swift: Alva’s nameplate was removed from her chamber at the Congress’s 24 Akbar Road headquarters and her personal staff told to leave.

Her assignments as general secretary in charge of seven states were farmed out to defence minister A.K. Antony, labour minister Oscar Fernandes and party veterans Motilal Vora and Mohsina Kidwai.

The idea behind assigning the jobs to Antony and Fernandes, who don’t hold party posts, was to dispel a perception ahead of Assembly elections that the action against Alva was “anti-minority”.

Alva had been among the Congress leaders who urged the party and the Centre to take stronger action on the attacks on Christians in Karnataka and Orissa. Privately, she was disappointed that “little” had been done.

Alva had alleged “sale” of tickets and bias in favour of other leaders’ relatives in the Karnataka polls this May, apparently upset that her son was denied a nomination.

She tried to substantiate the nepotism charge with another allegation: that relatives of several leaders had been made candidates for the Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and other state elections round the corner. But she didn’t give evidence of money changing hands.

Antony, who headed the disciplinary panel looking into her public outburst, had “advised” Alva on Monday to resign as general secretary. Alva had agreed but said she would like to meet Sonia.

The Congress president, who saw her rebellion as a “design to damage” the party, didn’t oblige.

The action in Delhi appeared to have sparked a counter-attack in Bangalore: Alva loyalist and former Karnataka minister Shivamurthy Nayak alleged that general secretaries Digvijay Singh and Prithviraj Chavan had sold the Mayakonda ticket meant for him.

Digvijay wasn’t available for comment. Chavan refused to react but a source close to him said if Alva had evidence, she should place it on the Congress chief’s table.

A four-member screening committee, which included central ministers Vayalar Ravi and Santosh Bagrodia, had unanimously cleared the names of candidates, the source added.

“If payments were made, they would have been done collectively, not to one or two.”