SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, April 7: On the directive of party president Sonia Gandhi, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal has asked both warring factions of Indian National Trade Union Cong (INTUC), Dadai Dubey and Sanjeeva Reddy to withdraw cases against each other from courts by April 30 for the unification of the organization.
The sources in INTUC said that KC Venugopal has issued a letter to both the factions for withdrawing the case on the recommendation of a two members high-level Congress committee set up by Sonia Gandhi for resolving the dispute.
INTUC, the Labour organization of the Cong Party, is divided into three factions: Sanjeeva Reddy, Chandrashekhar Dubey alias Dadai Dubey and KK Tiwary. All trio factions claim to be the original INTUC. In this regard, cases are pending in the Supreme Court, Jharkhand High Court, Kolkata High Court, Jabalpur and Delhi Patiala House Court.
Owing to the dispute and court cases, the ministry of coal has debarred INTUC members from JBCCI for the 11th National Coal Wage Agreement.
Moreover, as a dispute in INTUC badly affected Congress in assembly elections of Jharkhand and Lok Sabha election in 2019, Sonia Gandhi took serious note of it and set up two members committee of Digvijaya Singh, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, and Mallikarjun Kharge to mend the fences last year.
Singh and Kharge both have reportedly held four rounds of meetings with the leaders of both the factions and submitted the report to Sonia Gandhi. Sources said both the leaders have said that until cases are withdrawn from courts, no agreement can be struck upon.
Notably, Chandrashekhar Dubey in February last year had rejected the Digvijaya Singh – Mallikarjun Kharge committee alleging that they support the Sanjeeva Reddy faction.
INTUC all India secretary AK Jha today admitted to having received the letter of the Congress Party general secretary (organization) for withdrawing the cases from courts. “We (Sanjeeva Reddy faction) have not filed a case in any court to withdraw. We have made the party. However, whatever decision madam (Sonia Gandhi) takes, we would follow that,” said AK Jha.
INTUC secretary said that he hoped a solution would come out soon as Sonia Gandhi has initiated a step. He said they are ready to accept all decisions in the interest of workers and the organization.
However, the third faction of INTUC KK Tiwary group has ruled out receiving any compromise formula. A leader of his faction said that since cases are also pending against them, their faction can’t be ignored.
