Murders embarrass Congress

The cold blooded murder of a Congress party councillor by a fellow female colleague who has already confessed to her crime, is threatening to recoil on the party with the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trying to paint it as a party full of criminals.

The Congress party is expectedly worried, realising the murder of councillor Atma Ram Gupta at the behest of fellow councillor Sharda Jain may have given the BJP the stick to flog it with in the run-up to the Delhi state assembly elections due next year.

Notwithstanding the recent water and electricity crises in the metropolis, the Congress party was hopeful of repeating its 1998 act of sweeping the assembly polls on the strength of its exceptional performance during the February Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) where it ended up winning more than two-thirds of the seats.

While the Delhi Police have been searching for Gupta's body, they found a mutilated body of another local Congress party leader Ram Singh Sharma from a lonely stretch in south west Delhi yesterday, sending further panic within the Congress party.

Although the party initiated a damage control exercise on Tuesday itself when the local Delhi Police picked up Jain for killing Gupta by expelling her along with another councillor Memwati Barwala from the party, the party circles are already comparing it with the famous Tandoor murder case of 1996, for which the party had to pay a heavy price politically.

Delhi Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma was arrested then for killing his wife Naina Saini, who was also a party leader, and then trying to dispose of her body cut into several pieces by putting them inside a hotel's tandoor (earthern charcoal pot) used normally for roasting chicken.

The knee-jerk reaction by the Congress party leadership has only landed itself in further trouble about its full knowledge that people with criminal bent of mind were given party nominations during the MCD polls.

The body of Gupta, who was killed in neighbouring western Uttar Pradesh by Jain's brother and some hired killers, is yet to be recovered by the police.

The act of even expelling Barwala, who was in the contention to become Delhi's mayor, has given an opportunity to the party's opponents that the Congress party leadership was aware of the love-triangle that is believed to have led to Gupta's killing.

According to police, Jain, a former school teacher and a protege of Gupta, was unhappy with his growing closeness with Barwala and hatched the conspiracy to have her paramour killed.

Jain went missing on Saturday after attending Congress party president Sonia Gandhi's rally in the metropolis and was last seen leaving with Jain in her car.

Police say he was taken to a lonely spot on the Ghaziabad-Meerut highway and killed. The body was disposed of in the Hindon river and all efforts so far to fish it out from the river have failed.

"What is the basis for expelling Barwala when even the police have not questioned her so far?" a senior secretary of the Delhi Pradesh (state) Congress Committee (DPCC) remarked.

Barwala herself went on record yesterday claiming Gupta was like her brother, although this claim is being countered within the party circles.

"This was a clear case of an extra marital affair getting sour. Gupta was instrumental in getting party nominations to both Jain and Barwala and used his popularity to get them elected. It is a shame that the party gave nomination to two women in love with him without checking their background," the DPCC secretary lamented.

Gupta saw to it that both of them, despite being first time members of the MCD, were given plum posts. While Jain headed the MCD's committee on education, Barwala was made chairperson of MCD's Rohini area zone.

Jain's husband has not been seen in two years and Congress party circles feel she may have used the same tactics to get rid of him as she did in the case of Gupta.

"Whether it is Sunita Barti, Sharda Jain or Memwati Barwala, all the three are examples of the way the Congress party has been promoting people with criminal antecedents in politics and giving them party ticket to contest elections," the newly appointed chief of Delhi BJP and former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana said yesterday, while demanding resignations of the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Mayor Jaishree Panwar.

Legal circles say that Jain's confession to the police notwithstanding, unless Gupta's dead body is recovered along with the country made pistol used to kill him and the hired killer who was allegedly paid Rs60,000 by Jain to carry out the murder arrested, there is not much that can put Jain in the dock, as confessions before the police are not entertained by courts.

Moreover, Barwala's expulsion from the party continues to baffle many since there is no charge against her.

"If it is a clean up exercise, then it may be a bit too late. The damage has already been done and it may not be easy for us to recover form it soon," the DPCC secretary said.