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Congress rebels refuse to step down

Staff Correspondent

DEHRA DUN: The ruling Congress in Uttarakhand, working hard for a return to power, has suffered a setback with 24 party leaders, nine of them enjoying Minister of State rank, refusing to step down and declaring that they would contest the upcoming elections on tickets of different parties against the official Congress candidates. "We are collecting information from the districts and will take appropriate action soon," the chief spokesperson, Surendra Kumar, told The Hindu.

Although senior Congress leaders maintain that the presence of rebels would not make much difference, insiders reveal that efforts were still on to persuade the rebels to quit in favour of the official nominee or face expulsion. "That some of our senior workers chose to rebel despite persuasion from leaders including Suresh Pachauri and J. P. Aggarwal speaks that all was not well within the organization and we will need to take drastic action to set the house in order after the polls," said a senior party man from Uttarkashi, K. S. Bisht.

The rebels have been welcomed with open arms and given tickets by the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janashakti Party.

The rebels include Vivekanand Khanduri who is contesting from Rajpur on the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal ticket. Mr. Khanduri enjoys support of the locals who know him since his college union days.

He is taking on Transport Minister Hira Singh Bisht. If the Congress votes get divided, the seat may go the BJP way, observers say.

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