Leadership tussle in 'Gulabi gang'

A leadership tussle erupted today in 'Gulabi gang', an organistaion which shot into limelight for taking up the cudgels against women atrocities, with a faction claiming that Sampat Pal was no longer its head. "Suman Singh, commander of Mahoba unit has been appointed the working chief of the group", national convenor of Gulabi gang Jaiprakash Shivhare said here.

Pal however asserted her authority saying she still headed the organisation.

The leader when contacted over phone feigned ignorance of any such development. "I am the chief of Gulabi gang and would return to Banda soon to prove it", she said today.

As to the reason for her removal, Shivhare said that there were complaints about Pal that she was allegedly "taking money for resolving the problems of poor and suffering women and so she has been removed by

Mahoba unit commander Suman Singh who has been appointed as working president." Countering the allegations, Pal said Singh is accused of throwing out her daughter-in-law. She had joined the gang in 2007. "In 2012 assembly polls when I was given the ticket from Manikpur by Congress, she was also vying for it (ticket) and ever since then she had a grouse against me," Pal alleged.

In 2006 to raise voice against women atrocities, Pal had founded Gulabi gang which is spread in Banda, Mahoba, Chitrakot, Fatehpur, Farrukhabad, Kanpur, Allahabad, Etawah and Bijnore and has about three lakh women as its members.