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Congress rift in the open; party MLA held

DEHRA DUN: The rift within the Opposition Congress in Uttarakhand seems to have spilt over with the Udham Singh Nagar police registering a case against party MLA from Rudrapur and former Minister Tilak Raj Behad ostensibly at the behest of the local Congress M.P., K. C. Singh Baba, on Wednesday.

Mr. Baba is reported to have taken the action in a bid to persuade Himanshu Shukla, former Rudrapur Degree College students’ union president, to give up his attempt to commit self-immolation in front of the Rudrapur police station. Mr. Shukla had threatened self-immolation seeking filing of a case against Mr. Behad for having threatened him and revocation of a PCC order suspending him and Narayan Singh Bisht, Pithoragarh DCC president, along with two others.

The four had been suspended for creating a ruckus at the PCC meeting recently demanding party action against the arrest of Sanjay Negi, Naini Tal District Youth Congress president, in the Kaladhungi arson and carnage case of August. A mob had set ablaze the Kaladhungi police station and residential barracks in Naini Tal district, and killed Head Constable Puran Lal on Augugust 23.

The frenzied mob was protesting against the killing of BJP leader and Block Pramukh of Kotabagh, Balwant Singh Kanyal, by Bahujan Samaj Party district president Neeraj Tiwari inside the Kaladhungi police station when the former rushed in seeking protection from the assailant the previous night.

According to the police, Sanjay Negi had been arrested after his cell phone records allegedly showed that he had been talking with a dreaded criminal lodged in Dehra Dun jail at the time of violence.

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