Ranchi, July 18: In a bizarre series of events concluding the two-day 277th Indian National Trade Union Congress (Intuc) working committee meeting today, leaders of two rival Intuc factions expelled each other, holding parallel meetings barely 5km from each other.

National Intuc president G. Sanjeeva Reddy expelled rival faction leader and ex-MLA Chandrashekhar Dubey, while Dubey in turn also expelled Reddy.

Significantly, both factions claimed they were the “real” Intuc and said they would place their case before Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The Dubey faction replaced Reddy with Ammavati Krishnamurti and Reddy loyalist Rajendra Prasad Singh with Anil Sharma.

“Reddy has been Intuc president for more than 40 years, which is ridiculous,” Krishnamurti said, claiming their faction had worker support..

Reddy also minced no words as he said: “The parallel meet is unauthorised and illegal, so its decisions are not binding on the Intuc.”

While the Reddy camp met at BNR-Chanakya Hotel near the railway station, the Dubey camp met at Town Hall on Kutcherry Road.

He dropped a bombshell when he termed the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre was “pro capitalist” signalling a death knell for trade union movement. “The Centre is stressing on food security for all. We have demanded job security for all workers. Job security should replace food security,” Reddy said.

Reddy also confirmed that at the Intuc working committee meeting presided by him, they had “replaced” Bengal’s Intuc president Mukherjee with Pradeep Bhattacharya, alleging the former had no time to devote to workers’ problems.

Mukherjee has had a long and chequered association with the Congress. In May this year, he quit the Congress for the second time to join Trinamool Congress (TMC). In 1999, he had done likewise and was made the city mayor by TMC, only to rejoin the Congress in 2005.