Newly-appointed All-India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary and Uttarakhand state in-charge Kumari Selja on her Maiden visit to the state was disappointed over the party’s preparation to on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Senior Congress leaders and PCC office bearers in the state have disclosed that Selja during her first visit to the state as AICC state in-charge felt led down by the bickering among Congress leaders and lack of unity in the party in the state. She asked PCC president Karan Mahra and senior party leaders to get their house in order before the Lok Sabha elections.

Kumari Selja was unhappy with senior party leaders, including former chief minister Harish Rawat, former PCC chief and MLA Pritam Singh, leader of the Opposition in the House Yashpal Arya, and another former PCC president Ganesh Godiyal, for their failure to put up a united front even during her visit.

The Uttarakhand Congress leaders are reluctant to speak on record. But they accepted under the condition of anonymity that Selja did not take a positive note of the organisational activities in Uttarakhand in her day-long Dehradun visit to take stock of the party’s preparedness for the 2024 parliamentary elections.

“Factional feud was clearly visible before the AICC in-charge as senior leaders failed to speak in one voice to go to polls. They could not even sit together during meeting with Selja. All senior leaders, including PCC president Karan Mahra, Harish Rawat, Pritam Singh, and Yashpal Arya among others, spoke on their own views evading unity in the organisations,” alleged a senior PCC functionary while speaking to The Statesman under the condition of anonymity.

He further said, “I won’t hesitate to say that they were not even trying to put up a good face before the AICC state in charge. In fact, the Uttarakhand Congress failed to move forward even 22 months after the 2022 state poll debacle.

On January 15, Selja visited Dehradun for the first time to meet state Congress leaders, PCC functionaries, and district chiefs to assess organisational preparedness for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttarakhand.

Although she did not speak on factionalism in the state Congress, she said “I met the MLAs and district presidents at the party office and tried to get a first-hand feel of the ground-level preparedness of the party in Uttarakhand. Discussions were held on the basic principles of the party and public welfare schemes of the Congress. We Congress friends are ready to build a new tomorrow.”

However, when contacted, senior party leader and PCC vice-president Mathura Datt Joshi said, “AICC state in-charge had her introductory meetings with the party leaders, MLAs and district heads on Monday. Her visit witnessed a heavy turnout. All the party leaders were present in the meetings. She assured them to meet individually and lend ears to their grievances in her future visits.”

Interestingly, Congress failed to win a single seat in the two successive Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019 as the BJP registered landslide victories in all the five constituencies of the state.

Selja’s Dehradun visit will be followed by another big event in Uttarakhand Congress as AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge is scheduled to come here on January 28 to look into the party’s 2024 poll preparations.