This AJL office is an unlikely EGM venue

LUCKNOW: At the end of a blind alley in a non-descript half-constructed building in the heart of the city at Kaiserbagh lies the office of Associated Journals Limited (AJL).

This AJL’s office having three partitions, which looks more like a shop, will hold the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on the AJL on January 21 next. The AJL is a newspaper company which once published three national daily newspapers-National Herald in English, Navjivan in Hindi and Quami Awaz in Urdu- from this building at Bisheshwar Nath Road, Kaiserbagh, Lucknow.

On Saturday, when Congress President Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi made a personal appearance before the Patiala House Court in New Delhi, for bail, the two office bearers here at the AJL’s Lucknow office preferred to stay home to avoid media glare.

Lieutenant Colonel (retd) PS Tripathi, the administrator, and BP Kanaujia, manager, of the AJL office, whose name plates are duly displayed at the office door, did not turn up on Saturday. Vinod Kumar Dixit, the office assistant cum office boy, was left to answer all queries. When asked about the proposed EGM of the Associated Journals Limited at its Lucknow office on January 21 next, Vinod expressed ignorance.

“I am not aware about any meeting scheduled at t he Lucknow office. Only they (BP Kanaujia and PS Tripathi) will be able to tell you about it,” Dixit told HT. When asked about shareholders of the company in Lucknow, Dixit expressed his ignorance. Even BP Kanaujia, manager, AJL, Lucknow office, expressed his ignorance about the company’s EGM proposed in Lucknow, when contacted over phone. “I am not aware of any extraordinary general meeting of the company proposed here in Lucknow. I have come to know about it through an advertisement published in a newspaper,” Kanaujia told HT.

“On Monday, when I will go to office, I will confirm it from the company’s Delhi office,” Kanaujia added.

When asked about the AJL’s shareholders in Lucknow, Kanaujia said: “At present I don’t know about the shareholders. I will have to check with the Delhi office.” Ishrat Ali Siddiqui, chief editor, Quami Awaz, who died last year, was among the shareholders of the AJL in Lucknow.

This once bustling building, which now houses only few shops apart from the AJL’s Lucknow corporate office, is the venue for the next EGM of the Associated Journals Limited.