The controversy, which broke during the Congress foundation day celebrations in December, had left many red-faced and also claimed the scalp of the magazine's content editor Sudhir Joshi.
In a reprieve for Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) chief Sanjay Nirupam before the BMC polls scheduled to be held next year, the party high-command accepted his apology about controversial allegations against Jawaharlal Nehru and party president Sonia Gandhi's father and asked him “to be careful in the future.”
After the controversy about the articles in “Congress Darshan” — which blamed Nehru's policies over Kashmir, China and Tibet, and also discussed Gandhi's foreign origins and an allegation that her father Stephano Maino was a member of the fascist party, among others — the party disciplinary action committee headed by former union minister AK Antony had issued a show-cause notice to Nirupam, the magazine's editor and a former journalist.
The controversy, which broke during the Congress foundation day celebrations in December, had left many red-faced and also claimed the scalp of the magazine's content editor Sudhir Joshi.
“Sanjay Nirupam accepted the responsibility for publication of grossly inaccurate, baseless and malicious article against the Congress leadership in the party magazine and submitted his unconditional apology for the same.
The Central Disciplinary Action Committee, while accepting his apology, cautioned him to be careful in the future while editing, printing and publishing materials in Congress Darshan so that this type of grave mistake is not repeated,” sources in the party said.
“This was surely a major mistake. I am the president of the Mumbai Congress, which is a Congress unit and it is inappropriate if the mouthpiece carries something wrong against the party president,” said Nirupam, adding that he would ensure this will not happen again.
“I owned up the mistake... I have been asked to be cautious in the future,” he stated.
However, sources close to Nirupam blamed his detractors in the party for raking up the controversy and blowing it “out of proportion” just before the Congress foundation day. “This was a malicious article, but the timing too was wrong and ended up maligning the leadership. This was a sinister plan,” said a source, adding that this was coming at a time when the Congress was passing through a “critical phase.”
Any disciplinary action against Nirupam would have affected the Congress' plans to attract North Indian voters, who had shifted loyalties to the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha and subsequent state assembly elections, where the party could garner just three seats from Mumbai.
Nirupam, a former Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP, was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Mumbai North constituency in 2009, defeating the BJP's veteran warhorse and former union minister Ram Naik, who is now the Governor of Uttar Pradesh.
—With agency inputs
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