Congress tries to retain Jaffer Sharief in party

A day after he reportedly faxed his resignation letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, veteran Congressman and former Federal Minister C K Jaffer Sharief yesterday flew to New Delhi on an invitation from the party High Command, which has begun efforts to retain him in the party.

Senior Congress leader Jagadish Tytler told reporters in Bangalore that the Congress party would not allow Sharief to quit the party. “He is a senior leader of the party and I am sure he will not take any hasty decisions”, Tytler said.

Earlier, Sharief flew to New Delhi after receiving a call from Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel. The former Federal Minister, who is also a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), is scheduled to meet Sonia Gandhi on Saturday evening.

Former Chief Minister S M Krishna told reporters at his Sadashivanagar residence in Bangalore that the Congress party was trying to convince Sharief against quitting the party.

Sharief, who is also the Chairman of the Congress party’s Manifesto Committee for the ensuing assembly elections, is understood to have resigned from the primary membership of the party after the leadership denied a party ticket his grandson from an assembly constituency in Bangalore.

Sharief’s reported resignation on Friday had plunged the Congress party into a crisis forcing several senior leaders of the party including All India Congress General Secretaries Digvijay Singh and Prithviraj Chavan to call on the former Federal Minister at his residence in Bangalore.

Sharief had told senior Congress leaders that he was upset with the “raw deal” given to him during the allocation of party tickets for the polls. He is reported to be unhappy over the poor representation given to religious and linguistic minorities in the distribution of party tickets.

Though Sharief’s son in law and former MLC Syed Yasin has been given a party ticket from a constituency in Raichur in north Karnataka, the party refused to field his grandson by introducing a criterion that relatives of senior leaders will not be given party tickets in the elections.

Though Sharief had not come on record on his resignation, his aides told reporters that the veteran Congressman had faxed his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi explaining the reasons for his resignation.