Raj Babbar appointed new Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee President

Actor-turned-politician and senior Congress leader Raj Babbar was on Tuesday appointed as the party’s Uttar Pradesh President ahead of the crucial assembly polls in the state. Party general secretaries Ghulam Nabi Azad and Janardan Dwivedi made this announcement during a press conference in Delhi. However, the Chief Minister face for Uttar Pradesh, where crucial polls will be held in 2017, was not announced.

Babbar (64), born in Tundla near Agra in UP, belongs to the Viswabrahmin community which is considered an OBC. He has been a three-time Lok Sabha member and is currently a Rajya Sabha member from Uttarakhand. He was a Rajya Sabha member earlier also.

“Congress President Sonia Gandhi has appointed Raj Babbar as new president of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, along with four senior vice presidents,” Dwivedi said.

The new senior vice pressidents are Rajaram Pal, a backward, Rajesh Mishra, a Brahmin, and Bhagwati Prasad Chaudhary, a Dalit, besides Imran Masood, a minority.

The outgoing UP Congress chief Nirmal Khatra has been made the chairman of the state screening committee. Azad later said that Babbar is “above caste” and has an appeal across the country.Masood had courted controversy ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha polls when he said that he “will chop Modi into pieces”.

Congress, which was once the dominant party in UP, had remained out of power in the state since long, losing out to the caste politics of Samajwadi Party and BSP.

Azad was non-committal on a larger role of Priyanka Gandhi during the campaigning in Uttar Pradesh, saying the dates for elections have not been announced yet.

He, however, accepted that there have been demands for her campaigning for Congress beyond Amethi and Rae Bareilly. Triggering wide speculations, Priyanka earlier on Tuesday met Azad. 

(With PTI inputs)