Ghulam Nabi Azad attacks Rahul Gandhi as he resigns from Congress; party hits back with 'betrayal' jibe
New Delhi [India], August 26 (ANI): In a jolt to the Congress days before its much-publicised Bharat Jodo Yatra, senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday resigned from the primary membership of the party in a letter he wrote to the party's interim chief Sonia Gandhi and targeted party leadership, particularly Rahul Gandhi, over the way the party has been run in the past about nine years.
Azad's resignation triggered the resignation of five Congress leaders in Jammu Kashmir, his native state where he served as Chief Minister from 2005 to 2008.
The Congress reacted strongly to Azad's resignation with party leader Jairam Ramesh alluding that he has ties with the BJP. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and party leader Mallikarjun Kharge took a dig at Azad over his allegations against the party leadership.
Following Azad's resignation, leaders who left Congress in the recent past including Sunil Jakhar and Kuldeep Bishnoi, also targeted the way Congress was being run. Azad was a member of Group of 23 which had sought sweeping changes in the party.
In the hard-hitting five-page letter, Azad claimed that a coterie runs the party while Sonia Gandhi was just "a nominal head" and all the major decisions were taken by " Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs".
Among the most experienced leaders of the Congress, Azad served as a minister with former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh.
Azad said he was submitting his resignation with "great regret and an extremely leaden heart" and severing his about 50-year association with the Congress. He was earlier Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.
Recounting his long association with the Congress, Azad said the situation in the party has reached a point of "no return."
"Unfortunately, the situation in the Congress party has reached such a point of no return that now 'proxies' are being propped up to take over the leadership of the Party. This experiment is doomed to fail because the Party has been so comprehensively destroyed that situation has become irretrievable. Moreover, the 'chosen one' would be nothing more than a puppet on a string," he said.
While Azad took potshots at Sonia Gandhi, his sharpest attack was on Rahul Gandhi and he described the Wayand MP as "non-serious individual" and "immature".
Azad said Congress has conceded political space to the BJP at the national level and to regional parties at the state level.
"This all happened because the leadership in the past eight years has tried to foist a non-serious individual at the helm of the party."
The former union minister said that the "wise counsel" of senior leaders that Sonia Gandhi took during the UPA-I and UPA-II governments got demolished with Rahul Gandhi's elevation in party hierarchy.
"Unfortunately after the entry of Shri 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 new coterie of inexperienced sycophants started running the affairs of the Party," he said.
Azad said that it was "worse still the 'remote control model' that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now got applied to the Indian National Congress."
"While you are just a nominal figurehead all the important decisions were being taken by Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guard's and PA's."
Referring to the ongoing organisational election process, Azad termed it "a farce and a sham".
"At no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organisation. Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC has been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC sitting in 24 Akbar Road," Azad wrote.
He said the "AICC leadership is squarely responsible for perpetrating a giant fraud on the party to perpetuate it's hold on the ruins of what once was a national movement that fought for and attained the Independence of India".
"Does the Indian National Congress deserve this in the 75th year of India's independence is a question that the AICC leadership must ask itself."
Azad severely slammed Rahul Gandhi for tearing the ordinance concerning disqualified and convicted MPs and MLAs during the UPA rule. He said Gandhi's action contributed to the defeat of the Congress-led government in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
"One of the most glaring examples of this immaturity was the tearing up of a government ordinance in the full glare of the media by Shri Rahul Gandhi. The said ordinance was incubated in the Congress Core Group and subsequently unanimously approved by the Union Cabinet presided over by the Prime Minister of India and duly approved even by the President of India. This 'childish' behaviour completely subverted the authority of the Prime Minister and Government of India," Azad said.
"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."
He also slammed Rahul Gandhi over the party's defeat in 2019 election and his subsequent decisions while also taking a dig at Sonia Gandhi.
"Since the 2019 elections, the situation in the party has only worsened. After. Rahul Gandhi stepped down in a 'huff' and not before insulting all the senior Party functionaries who have given their lives to the party in a meeting of the extended Working Committee, you took over as interim President. A position that you have continue to hold even today for the past three years."
"Under your stewardship since 2014 and subsequently that of Shri Rahul Gandhi, the INC has lost two Lok Sabha elections in a humiliating manner. It has lost 39 out of the 49 assembly elections held between 2014 -- 2022. The party only won four state elections and was able to get into a coalition situation in six instances. Unfortunately, today, the INC is ruling in only two states and is a very marginal coalition partner in two other states."
Recalling his association with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi besides Sanjay Gandhi, Azad said "some of my other colleagues and I will now persevere to perpetuate the ideals for which we have dedicated our entire adult lives outside the formal fold of the Indian National Congress for all the reasons mentioned above especially that the INC has lost both the will and the ability under the tutelage of the coterie that runs the AICC to fight for what is right for India."
"In fact, before starting Bharath Jodo Yatra the leadership should have undertaken a Congress Jodo exercise 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 said.
Azad said he had been general secretary incharge of every state or union territory of the country over the past 35 years. "I am happy to state that INC won 90 per cent of the states that I was incharge from time to time," he said.
Azad said the action plan submitted to the party by a panel led by him in 2013 had not been acted upon.
Jairam Ramesh accused Azad of betraying the party which had given him important positions and said he had made "vicious personal attacks".
"A man who has been treated by the greatest respect by the Congress leadership has betrayed it by his vicious personal attacks which reveals his true character. GNA's DNA has been modi-fied," he said.
"If Mr Azad and his remote control think his resignation will destabilise the Congress party's Mehangai Rally on Sept 4th and the launch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra on Sept 7th, they are grossly mistaken. The resignation has further strengthened our resolve!" Ramesh added.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said Azad was perhaps the seniormost leader to quit the party in recent times and it is scary to see the Congress implode.
"Long rumoured to be in the offing but a body blow to the Congress nonetheless. Perhaps the seniormost leader to quit the party in recent times, his resignation letter makes for very painful reading. It's sad, and quite scary, to see the grand old party of India implode," Omar Abdullah said in a tweet.
Gehlot said no one expected Azad will write such a letter.
"I've no words to express what I feel about his (GN Azad) resignation letter. He served at many positions in the party. No one expected he would write such a letter. Earlier, he had written to Sonia Gandhi when she went to the US for a medical checkup. Congress gave him everything. Today, he is a known leader because of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi," Gehlot said.
Salman Khurshid also took a dig at Azad.
"Rahul Gandhi is our leader and will remain so. We don't have a give-and-take relationship with Rahul Gandhi. It's our duty to do something for the party. It is not mature that people who were associated with the party for a long time leave over such a small thing. It is not that we can't go anywhere but we will not go and will remain with the party. We see this country's future with the party and hope that party will rise," Khurshid said.
Congress leader Anand Sharma, who is also a member of G 23, said he was shocked and the situation was avoidable.
"I am personally shocked. This situation was entirely avoidable. We were hopeful that there would be serious introspection but unfortunately, that process was subverted," he said.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who joined the BJP after resigning from Congress, slammed Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi following Azad's letter.
"If you read Ghulam Nabi Azad's letter and the letter I wrote in 2015, you will find a lot of similarities. In Congress, everyone knows Rahul Gandhi is immature. Sonia Gandhi is not taking care of the party, she's only trying to promote her son. It is a futile attempt," he told reporters.
"As a result, people loyal to the party are deserting it...Rahul Gandhi is actually a blessing for the BJP," Sarma added.
Jaiveer Shergill, who quit the party earlier this week, accused the Congress of "coterie culture".
"Now a senior leader is speaking about it becoming a club of PAs and security guards and it shows that leaders across age groups are frustrated and disappointed by this entire coterie culture that is thriving in the Congress," Shergill told ANI. (ANI)
Source: National