Srinagar, Aug 26: A political storm hit the Congress party after its stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad parted ways after remaining in the party for 50-long years.
The move is seen as a major setback to the party that is already facing many challenges at both national and regional levels.
Blaming the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Vice President, Rahul Gandhi for “demolishing the consultative mechanism” in the party, Azad in his five-page resignation letter said that after his appointment as VP in 2013, all senior and experienced leaders were side-lined and new coterie of inexperienced sycophants started running the affairs of the party.
In his resignation letter addressed to AICC’s interim president Sonia Gandhi, ), Azad said that “While you are just a nominal figurehead all the important decisions were being taken by Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guard’s and PA’s.”
Sharing his experience and work in Congress since his joining in 1970’s, Azad said, “I am recounting all these years of selfless service just to underscore my life long association with this great institution that I also served recently as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha for 7 years. I have spent every working moment of my adult life in the service of the Indian National Congress at the cost of my health and family.”
The letter further read: “Under your stewardship since 2014 and subsequently that of 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.”
The letter further states that 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,” it said, adding that “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 Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guard’s and PA’s.”
It said that 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. Unfortunately, at the National level we have conceded the political space available to us to the BJP and state level space to regional parties. This all happened because the leadership in the past 08 years has tried to foist a non-serious individual at the helm of the Party,” the letter reads. “The entire organizational election process is a farce and a sham. At no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organisation.”
The handpicked lieutenants of the AICC has been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC siting in 24 Akbar Road.
“At no place in a booth, block, district or state was an electoral roll published, nominations invited, scrutinized, polling booths set up and elections held. The AICC leadership is squarely responsible for perpetrating a giant fraud on the party to perpetuate its 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,” the letter said. “For all the reasons mentioned above especially that the Indian National Congress 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.”
Meanwhile, Azad is all set to float a new political podium in Jammu & Kashmir, sources said, adding that a new party led by him would likely be launched in September, 2022.
Sources said that the discussion over floating the new political party was going on for several months after the leaders observed that they were being ignored and sidelined in the party.
“Everything has been almost finalized and the announcement with regard to the launch of new political party will be made soon,” they said.