"Step-motherly treatment has been meted out to the representatives of Dalits, adivasis, Muslims and women as they have been kept out of the meeting with Gandhi. It is an insult," former Union Minister Aslam Sher Khan alleged after a meeting of the Coordination Committee of Madhya Pradesh.
Lamenting that only a handful of state leaders from the Committee were called for consultations at 10 Jan Path, he said this "neglect" of partymen was strange at a time when the Congress is out of power in the state for the last ten years and losing elections at every level.
Khan's outburst came after he along with former MP Assembly Speaker Srinivas Tewari and party leaders Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Ganga Ureti, Manju Rai, Indrajit Patel, Mahendra Singh Kalukheda and M P Prajapati were kept out of the meeting despite being members of the Coordination Committee.
Senior leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath, Suresh Pachauri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ajai Singh and PCC chief Kantilal Bhuria attended the meeting.
AICC General Secretary B K Hariprasad, who is in-charge of party affairs in Madhya Pradesh, sought to ignore Khan's charges saying that he had convened the Coordination Committee meeting which was attended by all the members.
He said during the interaction, Gandhi asked partymen to fight against the BJP "misrule", activate the organisation and prepare for the Assembly elections scheduled next year.
Replying to questions, he said the Congress will not be projecting any chief ministerial candidate in the polls. Digvijay Singh had suggested that Scindia should be projected the leader. Congress is out of power in Madhya Pradesh since 2003.