Ex-Cong chief demands change in city leadership

Mumbai: As the Lok Sabha election is less than six months away, the Mumbai Congress has still not come out from the factionalism. Former Mumbai Congress chief and MLC Janardan Chandurkar wrote a letter to party in-charge of Maharashtra Mallikarjun Kharge about change of leadership in Mumbai.

The letter also mentioned that Mr. Nirupam should not be given a ticket from the Mumbai North West seat as he had tried to discredit and malign late Gurudas Kamat. The letter has been signed by 42 congress party office-bearers including Mr Chandurkar, who are loyalists to Mr Kamat. The copy of the letter is available with The Asian Age.

Mr. Chandurkar confirmed, “The letter was written by the supporters of Mr Kamat, the letter pad was mine. Mr Kharge heard our demand patiently.” He added that the party in charge have assured to convey their grievances to the party president Rahul Gandhi. He also clarified that Mr Kamat’s supporters will abide by any decision taken by party high command.

The letter reads, “We firmly believe that this is an unique opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start fresh and unite the party. This can only be done with the change in current leadership of Mumbai. We leave the decision to honourable Congress president to put a new leader in place who will take care of everyone including the followers of Gurudas Kamat.”

According to the letter, there is anguish and anger amongst the followers of Mr Kamat and common people residing in Mumbai North West constituency on losing Mr Kamat. To a major extent this anger is directed towards Sanjay Nirupam, who the workers hold responsible for trying to discredit and malign Mr Kamat. Mr Kamat spoke about this in his last address to the workers in Andheri east on August 19, three days prior to his death.

The Asian Age tried to contact Mr. Nirupam, but he wasn’t available for a response.