Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh slammed veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on quitting the party on Friday and said Azad betrayed the Congress since his DNA has been “modi-fied”.
“A man who has been treated with 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,” Ramesh tweeted.
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.
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) August 26, 2022
Meanwhile, Congress leader Pawan Khera also took a sweep at the veteran leader and said, “When he was taking all the decisions, he proudly belonged to the core group. Now, when others are taking decisions, he labels them as sycophants. The challenges faced by Congress today are because of leaders like him.”
Earlier in the day, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from the party including from all the positions.
Azad wrote a five-page letter to Congress president Sonia and said senior leaders have been sidelined and a “coterie of inexperienced sycophants” are taking all the decisions. He further said, “Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs.”
Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad severs all ties with Congress Party pic.twitter.com/RuVvRqGSj5
— ANI (@ANI) August 26, 2022
Recounting his association with the Congress Azad said, the Congress party has reached a point of “no return.’
“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 organization. Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC have been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC sitting at 24 Akbar Road,” Azad said.
Hitting on Rahul Gandhi Azad further said, “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 to continue to hold even today for the past three years.”
“This ‘childish’ behavior 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,” the Azad wrote.
Azad continued the attack on Rahul Gandhi and said, “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.”
Earlier Congress’s top leadership announced a ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.
“While undoubtedly as the President of the Indian National Congress you played a sterling role in the formation of both the UPA -1 and UPA-2 governments. However, one of the major reasons for this success was that as President you heeded the wise counsel of senior leaders, besides trusting their judgment and delegating powers to them. However 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,” Azad’s letter read
Moreover, lawyer-turned-politician Jaiveer Shergill also took a jibe at Congress and said leaders across age groups were frustrated with Congress’s ‘coterie culture’. On Wednesday Jaiveer Shergill resigned as Congress spokesperson.
However, before Ghulam Nabi Azad prominent who left the Congress party are Jyotiraditiya Scindia and Jitin Prasada.