Congress party positions up for sale in UP?

Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi might be having great plans to give the party a new look as a part of his mission 2012, but back in the heartland of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, party positions have been put up for "sale".

A poster put up inside the premises of the District Congress Committee in Bahraich is emboldened with the rate for each organizational post.

It begins with the position of All India Congress Committee member for which there was a price tag of Rs 1 lakh, followed by UPCC membership for Rs 50,000, District Congress Committee membership for Rs 5000 and Block Presidentship for Rs 20,000.

However,

no sooner than the news about such posters broke out, Congress leaders allegedly got the same removed, but not before its pictures were already carried by a Hindi daily.

Asked to comment, Bahraich District Congress president Jitendra Singh 'Jeetu' flatly denied the existence of any kind of "rate list". But when confronted with pictures of the poster he promptly blamed it on the "opposition" for "hatching a conspiracy to tarnish the image of the Congress party."

Get Rediff News in your Inbox: