Khursheed: In trouble?

New Delhi, March 27: Four months after Salman Khursheed took charge of the Uttar Pradesh Congress, murmurs of dissent have begun to rise.

At a meeting last week at the party headquarters here, anti-Khursheed MPs and state leaders launched a veiled attack on the Uttar Pradesh Congress president.

The meeting, presided over by Satyavrat Chaturvedi, the AICC general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, was ostensibly called to discuss aspects of the ongoing Congress organisational polls in the state.

But leaders like former state Congress chief Jagdambika Pal, MPs Surendra Prakash Goyal (Hapur), Rajesh Mishra (Varanasi) and K. Mahendra Singh (Mathura) ? mainly upper caste leaders ? used the opportunity to criticise Khursheed?s ?style of functioning?.

The leaders said they were not consulted on party matters, particularly the holding of organisational elections.

AICC secretary J.D. Seelum, the state returning officer for the polls, was also called to hear the views of the leaders at the meeting.

The anti-Khursheed camp is understood to have demanded that they be taken into confidence while ?electing? party functionaries in their respective districts. However, the leaders are understood to have explained later that the meeting was not intended to discuss party affairs in the state but only to give ?suggestions? on smooth conduct of the organisational elections.

Khursheed is said to be miffed by the way the meeting was convened. ?Such a meeting should not at all have taken place in the AICC headquarters. It should have been held in Lucknow with the knowledge of the UPCC and all those wanting to make suggestions regarding the conduct of the elections should have been involved,? said a source close to Khursheed.

The Uttar Pradesh Congress chief is understood to have brought the matter to the notice of party president Sonia Gandhi. He has also lodged a protest with the party?s central election authority chairman, Oscar Fernandes, over Seelum?s presence at a meeting that, ?instead of helping in the smooth conduct of the polls, has sought to sow seeds of dissension within the state Congress?.

Khursheed loyalists suspect that Chaturvedi might be playing into the hands of the state party chief?s detractors, some of who are said to be maintaining a channel of communication with Samajwadi Party boss and chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Khursheed camp alleged that some MPs want to convert the party organisation set-up in their respective districts in to ?franchise? units and that the leadership must not entertain their ?unreasonable demands?.

The state party chief?s protestations have apparently put his detractors on the backfoot. They have been cautioned against making discordant noises at a time when the Congress is ?involved in a determined struggle to revive the party in the state in which Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have taken particular interest?.