Sonia may make patch-up efforts

SYED YASIR SRINAGAR, May 26: During her visit to Jammu and Kashmir, UPA chairperson and All India Congress Committee president, Sonia Gandhi, is expected to give tough directives to senior leaders of J&K Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) to end factionalism in the party and work as a unit in the interest of the party.

Apart from her other engagements, sources close to the party told KTNS that the Congress president would meet senior leaders of PCC in a bid to end internal bickerings in the party.

Sources said the growing divide in the ranks of PCC had irked Congress high command after its state incharge Prithvi Raj Chauhan and other senior leaders of AICC briefed the Congress president about internal party bickering, particularly the growing divide between loyalists of JKPCC president, Saif-ud-Din Soz and union minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad.

The sources said the party high command had realised that things were going out of control in the state and it had become imperative for the party leadership to intervene to set things right.

Pertinently, the growing divide could be gauged from the fact that the two factions of PCC were organising public meetings separately.

The JKPCC headquarters at Kashmir and Jammu were virtually occupied by the loyalists of both political heavyweights.

When union home minister P.

Chidambaram, was scheduled to address Congress workers at the party headquarters here few months back, Azad’s loyalists were not allowed to share the dais with the union home minister.

Even Soz’s loyalists castigated senior Congress leader and roads and building minister G.M.

Saroori for not allowing them to organise public rally at Khanabal in Anantnag last month.

The rally was later organised on road.

However, the local Congress leaders term the visit of Sonia Gandhi as a significant step towards strengthening the party ahead of local bodies’ elections.

Central leadership is desperate to see local Congress leadership as a single unit so that Congress could perform better in the coming elections, sources maintained.

The Congress president is likely to meet local leaders both in Jammu and Kashmir separately so that a patient hearing would be given to grievances of both the groups before the party president and other AICC leaders.

Interestingly, both Azad and Soz have not attended any public meeting jointly for a long time now.

Since he resigned as state chief minister, Azad has not attended any function at the party headquarters here.

Soz, on the other hand, has succeeded to cling on to the post of PCC president post despite facing serious criticism from various quarters within the party.

According to sources close to the party, after Soz voted against NDA in 1999, which effected the fall of Vajpayee led government, 10 Janpath has remained very sympathetic towards him.