DHARAMSHALA: The Congress convention at Matuar, near Kangra, turned into a battleground of sorts on Monday with rival factions resorting to raising slogans against each other as the newly appointed in-charge of party affairs in Himachal Pradesh Rajni Patil watched in dismay.This was Patil’s first visit to the state after being appointed as the party in-charge of Himachal Pradesh. However, the venue turned into a battlefield for supporters of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh and his arch rival and Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee president (HPCC) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.Both factions began targetting each other right from the beginning, leaving the party leaders fuming on stage.Patil was here to take the feedback of party leaders in the state and activists. Former minister Sudhir Sharma, who is known as the blue-eyed boy of Virbhadra, told her that she should meet party workers in the absence of Sukhu if she wanted to get the real feedback.Earlier, after the welcome to Patil, supporters of Sharma and former minister G S Bali, who is from Sukhu’s camp, indulged in aggressive sloganeering, forcing the two leaders to leave the stage and ask them to pipe down. At one point, as slogans of “Bali down, Bali down” were raised, the ex-minister’s son Raghuvir warned them against it.Clearly unimpressed with the proceedings, Patil advised the party workers to work unitedly for the parliamentary elections next year. She said there are rifts between within the party but she warned the leaders against making their differences public.“We have started working from today. If there are differences between leaders they should not take it to public or media. Otherwise, I would not hesitate from taking stern action against them,” she said.The Congress convention was earlier scheduled at Dharamshala indoor stadium but the permission was cancelled at the last minute and the venue had to be shifted to a marriage palace at Mataur.Among those who attended the convention included Sukhu, Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri, former MP Chander Kumar , former MLAs Jagjivan Pal, Yadwinder Goma, Sanjay Rattan, Ajay Mahajan and sitting MLAs Ashish Butail and Pawan Kajal among others.

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