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Resign first, Congress tells Councillors

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI OCT. 25. In a move aimed at eliminating non-serious and troublesome candidates from among the sitting party Councillors, the Congress high command is understood to have made it clear that all corporators seeking an entry into the Assembly through the elections due this coming December 1 would have to first resign from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Not only this, the resignation has to be submitted before filing the nomination papers for the Vidhan Sabha polls and an undertaking has to be given that they would ensure the success of the candidate who contests the seat vacated by them.

The move is expected to take the wind out of the sails of the Congress Councillors who have staked their claim for contesting the Assembly polls in place of the sitting MLA or from the BJP held seats. Already the impact of this well-timed decision has been felt with the number of prospective candidates from among the Councillors shrinking considerably. It is learnt that only ten sitting Councillors have so far volunteered to follow the new guidelines and of these only two have offered to resign. The rest are still said to be thinking. Insiders in the Congress say the AICC leadership feels that all the bad blood sought to be created by the huge surge in the demand for ticket by the sitting Councillors would come to an end automatically. "There is a very small section of sitting party Councillors who will risk following such a stringent regulation. This will lead to elimination of all the non-serious and trouble making candidates and only those who are loyal and dedicated would be left in the fray,'' remarked a senior party leader. It is understood that this formula was discussed between the senior party leaders including the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, the DPCC president, Chaudhary Prem Singh, the AICC in charge, Ahmed Patel, and the AICC secretary, Anil Shastri. After an informal approval the matter was referred to the party president, Sonia Gandhi, who is understood to have given her green signal.

The initiative to seek the resignations of those Councillors who are willing to contest has come close on the heels of the move by the party not to formulate any kind of criteria debarring Councillors from contesting. But this new criteria of seeking resignations and then ensuring the victory of the candidate in the MCD who comes in their place will help the party a lot and also cool down temperatures within the party. The rat race for the party nomination had led to sharp rivalry between the sitting MLAs and the Councillors and both had started working to damage each other. Senior party leaders in the AICC were of the view that such a situation would have harmed the interest of the party when the going was really good and some kind of formula had to be worked out in order to put an end to this competition. It was pointed out that the screening committee headed by the senior party leader, Moti Lal Vora, had been briefed on this issue and accordingly it would take a decision. The ticket seekers among the Councillors and the senior leaders pushing for the tickets of their candidates in this category would now have to assure the screening committee about following this new formula or face elimination.

Such had been the mad race for getting a party nomination that Councillors had started taking on their MLA and even showing him in poor light. Among the prominent people who are in the race for the party ticket and would have to fulfil the criteria to contest include the Leader of the House in MCD, Ram Babu Sharma, the Delhi Mayor, Ashok Kumar Jain, the Deputy Leader of the Standing Committee, Ashok Jain, besides Ajit Chaudhary and Shaloo Malik. It remains to be seen how many of the prospective candidates falling under this category gather courage to resign their seats and contest.

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