Senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on August 26, Friday, resigned from all positions including primary membership of Congress Party. His resignation came days after he resigned from a key post in Jammu and Kashmir Congress.
In his letter, the senior leader who was associated to Congress for five decades wrote that he is severing the association with an "extremely laden heart".
Azad, in his five-page letter, also launched a scathing attack on Congress MP Rahul Gandhi. The leader in his letter wrote that the party entered into troubled waters since Rahul Gandhi was announced as Vice President of the party.
"Unfortunately, after the entry of Rahul Gandhi into politics and particularly after January 2013 when he was appointed as Vice President by you the entire Consultative mechanism which existed earlier was demolished by him. All senior and experienced leaders were sidelined and a new coterie of inexperienced sycophants started running the affairs of the Party," he wrote.
Azad said that Rahul Gandhi tearing up a government ordinance in media glare was "most-glaring examples of this immaturity". Pointing out that the ordinance's incubation by Union government following the incident subverted authority of Prime Minister and it consequently led to party's defeat in 2014 General Assembly polls.
"Childish behaviour completely subverted the authority of the Prime Minister and Government of India. This one single action more than anything else contributed significantly to the defeat of the UPA Government in 2014 that was at the receiving end of a campaign of calumny and insinuation from a combination of the forces of the right wing and certain unscrupulous corporate interests," Azad further wrote.
In his letter, Azad expressed resentment over how concerns expressed by senior Congress leaders including him were not paid heed to. He said that "remote control model" demolished institutional integrity of UPA government and then of Congress.
He said, "Since the 2019 elections the situation in the party has only worsened," adding, "While you are just a nominal figurehead all the important decisions were being taken by Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs."
The politician later slammed mistreatment of senior leaders and said that the party conceded political space to BJP because "the leadership in the past eight years has tried to foist a non-serious individual at the helm of the Party".
"Before starting Bharath Jodo Yatra the leadership should have undertaken a Congress Jodo excersize across the country. It is therefore with great regret and an extremely leaden heart that I have decided to sever my half a century old association with the Indian National Congress and hereby resign from all my positions including the primary membership of the Indian National Congress," Azad wrote.
