Khabri ‘hurt’ over his removal as UP Congress chief

LUCKNOW: Former Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Brijlal Khabri has said that he is “hurt” over his removal from the party post and will meet senior leader Rahul Gandhi over the issue once the latter returns to Delhi from his Leh visit.

On August 17, the Congress appointed former MLA Ajay Rai as the new UPCC president replacing Khabri. “I am hurt but not angry in any manner”, said Khabri, a Dalit leader who held the UPCC president’s office for barely 10 months.

The Congress high command had appointed Khabri the UPCC president in October 2022 after the then UPCC president Ajay Kumar Lallu resigned from the post in March taking the moral responsibility of the party’s debacle in 2022 UP Assembly polls.

“It is important to meet Rahul Gandhi and talk to him directly. Was he aware that I was being replaced? I would like to know the circumstances that led to my ouster while I was busy working hard for the party. I was sitting in my office doing work on August 17 when at around 6 p.m. I learnt that I was replaced,” Khabri, 62, said.

He, however, said he had no issue as such with the replacement. “That is the party’s decision and it is most welcome. I accept it,” he said.

He further said, “I had left the BSP due to ideological differences with the BSP chief Mayawati and joined the Congress. I am here in the Congress because my purpose is the same as Rahul Gandhi’s to save the Constitution and democracy. I will continue my work in Congress with the same zeal. Post hardly matters in such a mission.”

When asked to specify reasons for his feeling hurt, he said: “I changed a lot of things in the UPCC. Dalits and Muslims started turning towards the Congress.”

When asked if he was removed because of the speculation that BSP chief Mayawati demanded that for her to join INDIA coalition, first her old lieutenants be removed from the Congress, he said: “If the BSP and the Congress have to come together, only top leaders of these parties would know.”